In the month leading up to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, set to start February 4th, online rumor has bubbled about an emerging hemorrhagic fever. Speculation began after China’s newspaper, Global Times, published a December 19th, 2021 article reporting epidemic hemorrhagic fever cases in Xi’an, China, a city of 13 million residents.
On December 20th, Global Times reported that Xi’an residents had been unnerved by an “emerging hemorrhagic fever.” Later, on December 23rd, Global Times announced Xi’an was officially locked down after “Chinese analysts said that the city faced the dual challenge of cluster COVID-19 infections and the spread of hemorrhagic fever.”
China’s Global Times sought to alleviate concerns, citing a health expert from Wuhan University, Yang Zhanqiu, as emphasizing that “a mature medical response strategy” was in place that almost certainly would ensure that “hemorrhagic fever shouldn’t have any chance to emerge as a big outbreak.”
China’s state-affiliated media ceased all reporting on hemorrhagic fever cases after Global Times published a December 24th article reiterating that the Xi’an lockdown was a response to a dual-threat of “both COVID-19 cases and hemorrhagic fever cases.”
Almost immediately, distrust of reporting by Global Times became apparent as social media posts began surfacing that appeared to show information that contradicted the reports being published by China’s state-affiliated media.
Speculation of a more serious problem, beyond what China’s state-affiliated media was reporting, was fueled by social media reports of a continuing hemorrhagic fever problem in Xi’an.
Unconfirmed social media posts included video, allegedly showing busloads full of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) military health personnel in hazmat suits in Xi’an. There were also pictures, allegedly appearing to show victims of hemorrhagic symptoms lying in the streets of China. While another video appeared to make a claim that “major hospitals in Xi’an have successively admitted many cases of hemorrhagic fever patients.”
On January 3rd, 2022, novelist and columnist, Porochista Khakpour, reported conversations with friends in China, writing on Twitter – “…friends in China are talking about a hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Xi’an.”
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