How Much Does a Coronavirus Worker Get Paid?

My wife’s cousin is a health worker in a public hospital in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning. Recently, he sent my wife a photo of himself at work. He was essentially dressed up in full biological protective gear. His province has had at least 50 confirmed cases of the so-called 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), but many Chinese say that this is being under-reported. My wife and him got talking about how much he was getting paid for what many would consider to be hazardous work. The answer came quickly and wasn’t very surprising (at least not for me). Zero. He’s not getting paid even though he’s interacting with patients on a day-to-day basis who potentially have coronavirus. This makes some sense in that in times of national emergency, some staff would volunteer their time to help combat the contagion that is crippling their country. However, he didn’t volunteer. He was told that he had to come into work whether he liked it or not. I asked my wife what would happen if he didn’t. The answer was simple. He would lose his job and never be allowed to work in a hospital, or hold any other government job, ever again. Justice (or injustice) is swift in the People's Republic of China.

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