Transparency

A community hospital in Yiwu, Zhejiang, is offering coronavirus vaccinations to the public, as long as they make online bookings and offer proof of work or study in Yiwu. But how reliable are these proofs, and how effective is the vaccine? Zaobao correspondent Chen Jing finds out more.

China’s gaokao began yesterday, with millions of students taking this national university entrance exam (gaokao). One phenomenon that got Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu curious was students wearing purple underwear to the exams. She examines this and other superstitions that give students a mental boost in the exam, and says that the gaokao needs to remain fair.

Following the recent China-India border clash, Hong Kong columnist Chip Tsao takes a look at both countries and muses that even as some viewpoints converge, different systems and different national characteristics produce very different fates.

Experts say China is much mistaken if it thinks that serving up nitty-gritty details on the initial stage of the Covid-19 outbreak will help it deal with the groundswell of negative international opinion against the country.

The case of a former high-calibre law consultant who allegedly sexually abused a teenage girl has been making the rounds among China’s internet community. While the man argued that theirs was a consensual relationship, netizens are not buying it. Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu asks: "What does it mean when justice has to be upheld by public opinion?"

Lianhe Zaobao’s Beijing correspondent Yang Danxu recounts her recent visit seeking medical treatment in Beijing in times of Covid-19. She extrapolates from her experience of being initially turned away and sounds a reminder to officials not to let complacency or a wish to maintain a positive recovery record lead to China facing a recurrent rash of outbreaks.

Netizens are devastated that an investigation report into the Li Wenliang incident released yesterday only yielded a chastising of local police officials. They assert that the report was grossly inadequate in addressing their suspicions of a cover-up in the initial stages of the Covid-19 outbreak. They ask: Was this meagre result all Dr Li Wenliang’s death was worth?

Texts written in reverse, replaced with emojis, and encrypted in morse code... Netizens demonstrated their creativity in resurrecting an interview with Ai Fen, director of The Central Hospital of Wuhan's emergency department, after it was removed by the authorities from the internet in China. ThinkChina traces how Chinese citizens banded together to keep an article alive, and shares a story of the "404 Building" written by a netizen.

Amid uncertainty, netizens are indulging in speculation about the origin of the Covid-19 virus. Their conjectures lead to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.