Officials held liable for COVID-19 lapses

China has held nearly 100 officials accountable in the past month for failing to perform duties as required to contain the Delta variant outbreak that spread to more than 15 provincial-level regions in less than a month, the worst resurgence of novel coronavirus infections the country has faced this year.

In Nanjing and Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, Zhengzhou in Henan province, and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, where there were severe outbreaks of local transmissions, five vice-mayors were punished, and three district Party secretaries and three directors of city health commissions were removed from office for failing to strictly follow COVID-19 containment procedures.

Zhu Lijia, a professor of public administration at the National Academy of Governance, said discipline inspection agencies nationwide have, since the start of last year, used normative and standardized methods to hold officials accountable for any failures to prevent and control the epidemic.

Rapid and accurate accountability strengthens officials' sense of responsibility, he said.

"For officials in places without cases for the moment, frequent accountability made public will increase their vigilance," Zhu said.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Party of China's top disciplinary agency, said on Sunday that it had issued a notice requiring disciplinary agencies nationwide to strengthen supervision over officials to address problems of failure to fulfill responsibilities in epidemic prevention and control.

The notice told disciplinary agencies to urge governments and departments to check for problems, including lax thinking and failure to improve response measures in light of changes in the virus.

Efforts are needed to address formalism and bureaucracy. Those who fail to perform their duties and cause outbreaks or the spread of infections should receive heavier punishment that is announced publicly, the notice said.

Zhu said:"As the epidemic is lasting for a long time, people tend to feel sluggish. The latest round of outbreak told us that even though we have done well in the past, we should not relax as long as there is still a pandemic in the world.

"Facing the need for long-lasting epidemic prevention and control, rapid accountability can keep officials nationwide alert."

On Aug 12, 20 officials in Guangzhou were held accountable for negligence in epidemic prevention and control after an outbreak occurred in the city in June due to imported infections. Among them, a vice-mayor received an intra-Party warning and the head of the city's health commission was dismissed.

On Aug 10, two senior officials of Eastern Airports, a State-owned company that oversees Nanjing Lukou International Airport－where the latest COVID-19 outbreak started－were detained on suspicion of serious violations of Party discipline and national laws.

Feng Jun, the company's Party secretary and chairman of the board, and Xu Yong, the company's deputy secretary and general manager, were placed under investigation after a group of cabin cleaners at the airport were found to have been infected with the virus while cleaning an airplane in July.

Earlier, 15 officials in Nanjing, including a vice-mayor and the head of its health commission, were held accountable for the airport outbreak, which spread to several provinces.

Han Guangzu, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's flight standard department, said the outbreak at the airport was caused by insufficient understanding of the complexity and severity of epidemic prevention and control work, lax management and a failure to strictly implement flight operation regulations.

In Zhangjiajie, Hunan province, where a number of tourists in the audience at a show last month were infected before carrying the virus to other places, 18 local officials were held accountable on Aug 3. The tourists didn't wear masks all the time while watching the show as required and the sterilization between shows was insufficient.

Yangzhou issued warnings this month to five officials for mishandling mass testing that allowed the virus to continue spreading.

Gao Guangming, deputy director of the National Health Commission's department of primary health, said earlier this month that the core reason for the problems that contributed to the latest outbreak was a lack of awareness of epidemic prevention and control.

"Some places didn't pay enough attention to regular epidemic prevention and control, which led to a decline in alertness, and relaxation and even weariness in the war against the epidemic," he told a news conference on Aug 13.

The CCDI has required disciplinary agencies at all levels to focus on whether entry checkpoints are protected, urging local Party committees and governments, as well as civil aviation, customs, border inspection and transportation personnel to perform their duties and minimize the risk of imported infections.

Detailed daily supervision is needed to eliminate risks and hidden dangers in a timely manner and close attention should be paid to the construction of emergency response systems, infection prevention and control in communities and hospitals, nucleic acid testing and the organization of vaccination.