Covid-19: How the coronavirus outbreak is testing China’s vaunted surveillance technology

Masks could be preventing China’s massive surveillance system from reading faces fully, according to AI scientists. Suspects who avoided home quarantine were at large for weeks, going to shopping malls, dining in restaurants and playing mahjong in entertainment centres. — SCMP

Jiapai is a village with 6,000 residents in Jinjiang city, southeastern Fujian province. On Jan 22, the village held a banquet to celebrate the upcoming Spring Festival, and half its population attended. Among the guests was a family just returned from Wuhan, Hubei.

It was two days after the Chinese government declared the new coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak a national emergency, and authorities at all levels were tracking and restricting the movements of people from Wuhan.