With the party investing so much in his performance, it's understandable that he's resorting to even more extreme measures to try and wait the virus out in Wuhan, the city of 11 million where it all began.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the coronavirus outbreak is the steady stream of video clips that are seemingly smuggled out of China, but really they're displayed on American social media through a kind of Internet osmosis: Westerners who use Chinese social media like Weibo sometimes search for and copy the content before it can be deleted by Chinese censors, giving foreigners an unvarinished glimpse into the horrors of the outbreak and China's draconian response.

Chinese government officials have referred to the new quarantine measures being implemented in Wuhan (and soon likely throughout Hubei) as 'war time' measures - in keeping with President Xi's 'People's War' rhetoric.

Screenshots from the video clearly show a group of mostly younger people without masks being led by a handful of masked individuals who don't appear to be wearing any kind of uniform. The reason why they are all bound together is unclear.