Never underestimate what people can/will do if they are kept inside all day with nothing else to do.

Sounds similar to how the doctor was punished for spreading rumors in late 2019/early Jan. Fortunately the government was able to put a stop to those dastardly rumors!

I seriously can’t imagine how awful it is to be living in Wuhan now and it seems the quarantine measures are taking hold in other provinces as the government goes all out on the people’s war. Anyone who can would be well advised to leave the mainland now if they haven’t already.

I don't doubt that at all, but I would be hard-pressed to believe that a significant number of people know how to "flip the Wall." Just for the sake of argument, suppose 10,000 people in a city of 10M are tech-savvy enough to detect loopholes in the system. That would be 0.1% leakage -- as watertight as it gets. And I can't fathom more people than that to be able to do this.

FWIW, Taiwanese media are having a field day sensationalizing the degree of control that China has undertaken. Last week, they broadcasted nonstop footages of Shanghai PSB ramming into homes and smashing mahjong tables because of a (national? provincial?) edict banning non-family members from congregating, even in private homes. And now they are talking about a new law immediately affecting Guangzhou and Shenzhen that, for the first time since the Cultural Revolution, allows the local government to confiscate private property if it deems necessary for fighting the virus.

FWIW, Taiwanese media are having a field day sensationalizing the degree of control that China has undertaken. Last week, they broadcasted nonstop footages of Shanghai PSB ramming into homes and smashing mahjong tables because of a (national? provincial?) edict banning non-family members from congregating, even in private homes. And now they are talking about a new law immediately affecting Guangzhou and Shenzhen that, for the first time since the Cultural Revolution, allows the local government to confiscate private property if it deems necessary for fighting the virus.[/QUOTE]

The videos I have been seeing are mostly small mahjong clubs that continue to operate despite the ban. The kind that operate in a converted residential apartment. A lot are circulating on wechat and have not been scrubbed, so this seems to be information they want to let out.

Any idea what the purpose of confiscating private property is about? That worries me a bit, one of our facilities is in a smaller city where the local govt officials are going around turning off power to keep certain businesses from operating. There is a definite level of over-reaction there.

Looks like Marriott has suspended all operations withing 50 miles of Wuhan.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...41834aaaf9.jpg

Hilton has announced that 150 of their hotels in China have been closed.

"...the very few activist bloggers would be able to get their information out, maybe, but not the average Jo. It's genuinely possible that the average Wuhan resident hasn't tried to access anything except WeChat and gov approved sites the last 3 weeks..." - most Chinese don't care about accessing Facebook or other banned sites. They are quite happy with their "intranet". Those who care have figured out their way around the Wall.
"...I seriously can’t imagine how awful it is to be living in Wuhan now..." - I have a friend who lives in the center of Wuhan. She is in good spirit, goes to work every day (office job for the government making payments to handicapped) and no food shortage. Getting "dressed up" for work is a bit of a pain but she is not complaining.

Are you Chinese? This sounds Chinese. Most people I know in Wuhan are indeed doing their best to remain in good spirits, but are growing rather miserable. Most can no longer leave their apartment communities and some are no longer receiving food. Some Chinese locals have been jumping fences to get out to buy groceries, although even that is "against the rules" as all supermarkets are now restricted only to "community shoppers". Many foreigners who didn't get out are having to fight to receive any pay from their jobs, which is understandable but certainly makes it an even more difficult situation for them.

For reference, I lived in Wuhan for 4 years and only left about half a year ago.

Sounds Chinese? No, I am Canadian and caucasian if you really need to know.
I did not say that everybody was in the same situation. I was commenting on one friend's situation.

Then your friend is basically feeding you party propaganda. I am seeing the local community groups. Those local Wuhan ladies are getting furious.

I can't comment on Wuhan because I rarely go there, but I will note that I've been a little surprised by how steadfastly my Chinese friends have toed the party line wrt the quarantine measures. I'm talking about people my age and younger, not just the older generations. By in large, they are not furious. Rather, they regard temporary suffering as necessary and worth while. That having been said, none of my friends have had problems procuring food or other basic necessities yet.

While I'm not a fan of many of the new policies, I must admit that keeping people from getting near each other and reminding them not to touch inert surfaces seems to be fairly effective.

If that's the case then all someone needs to do to get video out is get it to one of those 10,000 individuals. If each person knows 25 others, that's less than 3 degrees of separation.

In any case, what are people going to do if they are cooped up in their apartments for weeks? If you told me that someone created a clone of myself and he was going to try for one month to break into my computer remotely and delete all my files if he gets in, I'd take proper precautions and would be only slightly concerned. If you further added that this person would be cooped up in an apartment nearly 24/7 and would only be able to eat, sleep, and try to break into my computer, I'd be very worried.

While I'm sure the people who are actually sick with the virus and taken in for quarantine are understanding of the need to protect other people from them, there's another group of people who either don't have the coronavirus or have recovered and are furious about being thrown in with sick people, which just risks more spread. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/22/asia/...hnk/index.html

No, it is about attitude. Some people complain no matter how good they have it. Some make the best of their bad situation.
Blaming the government for everything bad that happens to you pretty much happens under all political regimes.

You are applying Western cultural norms based on personal freedom and individual-thinking to Chinese culture that regards people not as individuals but as elements of a larger humanity. Much of Chinese culture originated from the Yellow River Basin, which flooded regularly and invariably swept some people away each time. For example, the notion of celebrating the Lunar New Year (guo-nian) isn't really about welcoming the spring and planting seeds but refers to a classical fable of having survived (guo) a human-eating monster (Nian). In more recent history, the Chinese torched the entire city of Changsha in 1938, killing tens of thousands, to leave nothing for the Japanese to take. And during the HIV outbreak in several villages in Henan in the early 2000s, the villages were isolated to contain the HIV spread until the problem literally died away. Now with the coronavirus, people in the affected areas are accepting their fate as a part of the bigger whole. The current government's "patriotic education" and its history of intimidating the people have definite effects on the people's reactions, but it's the underlying culture that allows the Chinese to quarantine themselves in a way that other cultures like ours in the U.S. will absolutely not tolerate.

What about Italy? That's a pretty western country, and it's now got multiple cities under quarantine. If they have to quarantine the Bay Area to stop the spread of this virus, I'd accept that I can't leave in order to protect other people outside of the Bay Area, and I think most people would be able to understand that. Nobody would like it of course, but the vast majority would be able to understand why it has to be done. However, what I absolutely would not tolerate would be people firewalling my internet connection while I am stuck at home, and trying to prevent me from getting or sending information about the event that was keeping me at home in the first place.