A severe avian influenza outbreak has struck several provinces in China. Residents say infected chickens are still being allowed into the market.
In another video released by a duck farm owner in Shandong Province, rows of ducks—many of them dead—lie listlessly on the ground. "We work so hard, and then something like this happens," the owner lamented.
Mei-Shiang Ho, a public health expert in Taiwan, expressed concern over the lack of transparency in China to the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times.
"We have no way of knowing what's happening in China right now. The regime doesn't follow any rules and is not afraid of public backlash because they keep the people in the dark by blocking information. So, there's nothing we can do about China except to observe carefully," she said.
Current affairs commentator Jingyuan Tang described the regime's approach as systemic, a deeply ingrained pattern of behavior within the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) structure. He told The Epoch Times, "No matter how big a natural disaster or man-made calamity occurs, they will definitely fabricate an image of peace and prosperity as if the situation is excellent."
He added that this is how the regime maintains its power and often abuses it.
Tang said that the CCP's early COVID-19 cover-up, aimed at preserving a festive Lunar New Year, triggered a global crisis and plunged China into economic turmoil. He believes the CCP is now desperately seeking economic recovery through foreign investment and improved relations with the West.
He said that another outbreak could deal a fatal blow to the CCP's economic efforts, which is why officials will undoubtedly try to conceal it.
As early as mid-December last year, a female poultry farmer in Jiangsu, known online as “Little Cotton Jacket,” issued a video warning about a high incidence of avian flu in Shandong, Anhui, Hebei, and the northeastern region, with a “duck plague” outbreak occurring in chicken farms.
Poultry farmers are raising increasing alarms about avian flu, yet authorities have downplayed the situation and neglected to order the culling of affected birds, potentially endangering public health.
Wang, a local from Shanghai who spoke to The Epoch Times on the condition of anonymity, said that there had been no official notification of culling, and the sick chickens had all been sold by the farmers. A poultry farmer in Jiangsu also told The Epoch Times that 10 farms in their town had encountered avian flu, but all the poultry had been sold off.
Health expert Mei-Shiang Ho stated that infected animals are "absolutely inedible." She said that the CCP is making things worse by sending potentially infected animals to slaughterhouses, which risks contaminating the slaughterhouses. Workers could then spread the virus back to their own farms, leading to a wider outbreak.
A lack of transparency surrounding avian flu outbreaks in China is raising fears of wider transmission, including to humans, according to Tang. He said that while the virus primarily circulates among birds, the combination of unreported outbreaks and continued human contact with poultry increases the risk of the virus crossing the species barrier.
Since the end of last year, avian flu outbreaks have occurred in many countries around the world. Chinese official media have focused on exaggerating the severity of outbreaks in South Korea, the UK, Japan, and Puerto Rico, but reports have omitted any information about the situation within China.