(Minghui.org) More than 40,000 families attended a New Year banquet in Baibuting Garden, one of the largest communities in Wuhan, on January 19, four days before the city was locked down to contain a deadly coronavirus that has killed more than 1,000 people in China.

Baibuting, which covers an area of 4 square kilometers and is divided into nine grids with a total population of 130,000, is now ravaged by the virus. 

A February 9 post on Sina Weibo (a Chinese microblogging website) by a local resident using the pseudonym “Wild child hanniblo” said: “I am a resident of Baibuting Garden of Wuhan. I write this in despair. At present, Baibuting Garden is in an unmanned situation. Many people have been infected with this virus. But the leaders in Wuhan only gave one nucleic acid testing kit per day for one grid, which contains about 4,000 families.” The post was soon deleted. 

“Wild child hanniblo” also said, “A large number of suspected patients with fever are still at home. Some critically ill patients are running around for help. We heard that the authorities in Wuhan have given up on Baibuting for fear of being fired from their posts. Houhu Street next to us are receiving supplies and other support, but none was given to the Baibuting community. The residents here are desperate.”

The epidemic prevention and control task force in Wuhan issued two notices in the middle of the night on February 11. The notices stipulate that residents with fever must not seek medical care in a different district than their home district and that all residential areas must be closed off, with confirmed and probable cases under close monitoring. 

The new measures now put Baibuting residents in an even more dire situation. 

Based on the test kit quota in Baibuting, many people have inferred that the government also has quotas for infection and death cases that are allowed to be reported, which means that many more people may have died from the coronavirus than the official numbers report.