New facility opened by Wuhan government to battle the coronavirus: Door-to-door campaign to round up all infected raises ethical questions

Chinese authorities are getting increasingly desperate in their attempts to stem the crisis as the coronavirus outbreak is spiralling out of control and spreading like wildfire.

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Provisionally known as 2019-nCoV, this virulent abomination has infected over 28,350 people with 565 known fatalities, as per reports. 12 cases in the United States have been registered and the nCoV has spread to 27 countries with no viable cure or vaccine in sight.

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Increasingly draconian measures have been taken by the Chinese authorities to respond to the equally lethal strain. Chinese law enforcement officers have been recorded forcing residents of Wuhan to undergo quarantine and plans of conducting a mass roundup of all the infected in Wuhan city is underway.

Access to ground zero of the crisis has been limited, which has forced international media to rely on updates from official government channels. Doubts have begun to simmer about the truthfulness of authorities regarding the extent of the deadly outbreak, given China’s extensive history of repression.

Published medical journals suggest that the number of infected could be as high as 75,815, a figure which has been corroborated by several academics in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, social media posts tell a much portray a much, much darker story of the outbreak.

Wuhan government has been ordered by senior Chinese officials to “round up” and quarantine every infected individual in Wuhan. Completion of the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan coincides with plans for a mass roundup since the 600,000-square-foot facility was built in 10 days and contains 1,000 beds.

Such large numbers of infected people can be housed in facilities other than Wuoshenshan, which is a fact that suggests the hospital shall function in ways that history shall remember as a stain upon humanity.