Not a great wall, but …

It’s amazing how fast slave labor can work

NO COMPETITIVE bids. No environmental studies. No protests from the locals. It can be amazing how fast things get done in a totalitarian society. Put a few guns to the right heads, or imply such, and things happen fast.

When the authorities on mainland China announced they were going to build a hospital in a matter of days to combat this new virus tearing through the place, some Americans might have scoffed. But it seems that’s exactly what it accomplished, reports say.

The BBC says, “The 25,000-squaremetre [30,000-square-yard] Huoshenshan Hospital, one of two new hospitals being built, is scheduled to open on Monday . . . . According to state media, the new Huoshenshan Hospital will contain about 1,000 beds.”

These beds will be used to treat the thousands of Chinese suspected of being infected with the virus, for which the country is thought to be suppressing true infection statistics.

Who knows if the hospital will be any good? Maybe it’ll simply serve as a large storage building for sick people. Or maybe it will provide much-needed relief for other swamped hospitals.

The only thing we know for certain is that the hospital is an impressive feat of engineering. Social engineering, too.

We’re not the only ones impressed. The ChiComs put up cameras to livestream the hospital construction progress online. Reportedly it had more than 40 million views. Yes, at times people around the globe were literally watching paint dry.

If China had worked a little harder to suppress the virus initially—instead of information about it—the world might not be in this mess with the risk of a global infection. But getting a hospital off the ground in a matter of days shows Red China is taking things seriously now. Or at least putting on a good show.