April 2025: COVID-19 and China’s Newly Revised Infectious Diseases Law
The revision improves interagency coordination & disease reporting, expands local government authority, limits use of severest restrictions, and penalizes noncompliance with epidemic-control measures.
Welcome back to NPC Observer Monthly, a monthly newsletter about China’s national legislature: the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee (NPCSC).
Each issue will start with “News of the Month,” a recap of major NPC-related events from the previous month, with links to any coverage we have published on our main site, NPC Observer. If, during that month, we have also written posts that aren’t tied to current events, I’ll then provide a round-up in “Non-News of the Month.” Finally, depending on the month and my schedule, I may end an issue with discussions of an NPC-related topic that is in some way connected to the past month.
If you’re enjoying the newsletter, I hope you’ll share it widely. —Changhao
News of the Month
On April 27–30, the 14th NPCSC met for its fifteenth session, which the Council of Chairpersons convened on April 18. At that meeting, the Council also approved the NPCSC’s 2025 work priorities and plans for legislative, oversight, delegates-related, and foreign-affairs work; all but the foreign-affairs work plan were released on Wednesday, May 13.
At last month’s session, the NPCSC reviewed eight legislative bills and approved three of them.
First, it enacted the Private Economy Promotion Law [民营经济促进法], which took effect on May 20. For those who have missed it, my colleague Jamie Horsley has authored a two-part commentary on the new law. In the first installment on the Law’s December 2024 draft, she concludes that the draft “restates existing policies and legal requirements that have failed to resolve the sector’s legal challenges, emphasizes political correctness, and seems unlikely to succeed on its own to substantially reassure private investors and spark entrepreneurial enthusiasm.” Her follow-up piece for NPC Observer highlights notable new clauses in the Law’s final version and identifies several accountability measures that, if incorporated into the law, could have improved government compliance with it.
Second, the NPCSC revised the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases [传染病防治法], effective September 1. I will return to this law below.
Finally, the NPCSC adopted a decision granting the State Council’s request to suspend Article 31, paragraph 1 of the Seeds Law [种子法] in the China (Xinjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone for five years, until April 30, 2030. The decision authorizes the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to delegate its authority under that statutory provision to issue “seed production and operation licenses” to businesses engaged in the import and export of crop seeds to Xinjiang’s provincial agricultural department. The Zone’s founding document, issued in late 2023, listed this pilot program as an initiative the authorities would “explore.”
The NPCSC is seeking public comment on the other bills it reviewed last month. The consultation period will end on June 13 for the draft Ecological and Environmental Code and on May 29 for the other bills:
draft Atomic Energy Law [原子能法];
draft revision to the Arbitration Law [仲裁法];
draft Law on National Development Plans [国家发展规划法];
draft revision to the Prisons Law [监狱法]; and
draft Ecological and Environmental Code [生态环境法典].
Updating the Infectious Diseases Law: Lessons from the Pandemic
China first enacted the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (IDL) in early 1989, following several often-deadly outbreaks across the country in the late 1980s, especially Shanghai’s 1988 Hepatitis A outbreak attributed to the consumption of contaminated raw clams. Until last month, the IDL was only substantially updated once, in August 2004, after the SARS outbreak. In April 2020, about a month after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, the NPCSC included revisions to the IDL in its legislative agenda. The State Council produced an early draft in October 2020 for public comment, though legislative review didn’t begin until three years later and spanned an atypically long 18 months.
I wrote about the bill after the first draft came out in October 2023. As I observed then, the revision “seek[s] to address some of those weaknesses [in China’s public health system exposed by COVID-19] and codify the [epidemic-control] tools that have proven effective in practice.”1 That still holds true. But it’s interesting to see what provisions in that draft that lawmakers, now with some distance from the pandemic, later substantially modified or deleted outright. The following summary therefore builds on and updates my write-up of the October 2023 draft.
Scope of covered diseases. The IDL has always categorized covered diseases into three Classes: A, B, and C, in descending order of severity. Each class includes a list of enumerated diseases. (Class A, for example, includes only plague and cholera.) Previously, an emerging disease wouldn’t trigger a response under the IDL until it was officially classified. To fill this gap, the revision includes “sudden outbreaks of unknown origin [突发原因不明的传染病] and other infectious diseases” within the scope of covered diseases (art. 3, para. 1), along with new provisions on monitoring, reporting, and controlling such outbreaks, as discussed below. In addition, the revision authorizes the State Council to “adjust” the list of Class A diseases—in addition to those in Classes B and C (art. 3, para. 5).
Interagency coordination. Effective epidemic response requires coordination among siloed government institutions. To respond to COVID-19, for example, China established an interagency Joint Control and Prevention Mechanism under the State Council that included officials from 32 institutions as well as its counterparts at local levels. The revision memorializes the role of those “joint prevention and control mechanisms for major epidemics of infectious diseases” in assessing outbreaks and coordinating responses (art. 9, para. 1). Further, the revision clarifies the requirement that government institutions, both across different levels and within the same level, share information related to outbreaks, monitoring, and early warning, including the establishment of an information-sharing mechanism covering at least 12 central civilian and military agencies during an outbreak or epidemic (arts. 55–56).
Infectious disease reporting. After the SARS crisis, China created the world’s largest online direct reporting system for infectious diseases in early 2004. But, in the very early days of COVID-19, key actors in the Hubei public health system either failed to promptly report, or obstructed the reporting of, a new virus to central authorities, thereby delaying efforts to contain its spread. The rest was history. The revision thus aims to improve the direct reporting system in several ways. First, the revised Law elevates online direct reporting into a statutory scheme, while codifying and expanding on existing direct reporting rules (arts. 42, 45). Most notably, it requires that the following be reported within two hours: (1) confirmed or suspected cases of Class A diseases (including any other disease treated as such for prevention and control purposes); (2) emerging infectious diseases or sudden outbreaks of unknown origin; and (3) outbreaks and epidemics of any other infectious disease (art. 45, para. 2). Second, the revision introduces a safe-harbor rule shielding those who (lawfully) report infectious diseases from legal liability, even if it turns out that they sounded false alarms (art. 51, para. 2). Finally, the revision newly prohibits any entity or individual from “interfering with” the reporting of infectious diseases (art. 50) and prescribes attendant penalties for local governments, health and disease-control departments, quasi-governmental centers for disease control (CDCs), medical institutions, and blood banks (arts. 100–01, 103–05).
Epidemic-control measures. The revision maintains the original IDL’s graduated control measures based on a disease’s classification. While medical institutions have some discretion over how they treat and control Class B and C diseases, the IDL mandates certain measures for Class A diseases (arts. 58, 60)—which, again, include any other disease deemed as such for control purposes, such as COVID-19 from early 2020 to early 2023. Confirmed Class A cases and carriers, for instance, must be quarantined for treatment and placed under medical observation (art. 58, para. 1). Because these restrictions implicate individuals’ physical liberty, lawmakers added a provision requiring that affected persons receive written notice of their diagnosis and the measures to be taken, which must not exceed prescribed limits (art. 58, paras. 2–3).
It appears to me that the revision has also instituted a separate tiered framework for responding to infectious disease events based on their severity. This framework distinguishes at least between routine “outbreaks or epidemics” [暴发、流行] and “major epidemics” [重大传染病疫情]—and perhaps “public health emergencies”2 [突发公共卫生事件] as well. Of note, the revision has generally limited the use of the more drastic measures to respond to infectious disease events, and it did so in several ways.
First, some measures previously authorized for all outbreaks are now limited to “major epidemics”—defined as outbreaks that “have caused or may cause serious harm to public life and health” (art. 113(1)). Such measures include what the IDL terms “emergency measures,” such as limiting or prohibiting gatherings, suspending work, businesses, or classes, and sealing off places that may contribute to the spread of the disease (art. 63). They also include the emergency mobilization of personnel and resources and the requisition of private property for epidemic response (art. 69).
Second, the finalized revision deleted all “emergency measures” added by the first draft. These were the controversial measures that China employed to contain COVID-19, including reducing transport capacity, restricting movements through “travel codes,” conducting mass testing and health monitoring, and using “health codes” powered by big data for contact tracing, quarantine, and risk alerts (Oct. 2023 Draft art. 61). A legislative report shows that the legislature deleted those provisions to “strike a balance between epidemic control and socioeconomic development” and to ensure that the measures taken are “scientific and proportionate.” While the revision leaves in place a catch-all provision authorizing other “necessary” emergency measures to contain the spread of a pathogen, I do wonder if the removal of COVID-era tools signals a tacit official recognition that some of those restrictions might have gone too far.
Finally, the revision adds new transparency requirements. When employing an emergency measure or another specified control measure—such as “hard isolation” of the sort ordered in Shanghai in spring 2022 or sealing off a whole city (arts. 64, 66)—the relevant government must issue a public notice “making clear the specifics, scope, and duration of the measure and providing the necessary explanation” (art. 67, para. 1). (Relatedly, when such a restriction is in place, local governments must ensure the provision of basic necessities, afford special care to vulnerable populations, and guarantee access to medical treatment (art. 67, para. 2).)
Challenges to epidemic-control measures. Since 2004, the IDL has allowed private entities to challenge the preventive and control measures taken by health departments, CDCs, or medical institutions through administrative reconsideration or litigation. The revision now adds local governments to the possible defendants listed in Article 17.
A more noteworthy change to available remedies appears in a new Article 74. Under this provision, private entities may challenge the following measures by “filing complaints” [申诉] with the relevant local governments: (1) those taken to contain Class A diseases, including hard isolation (arts. 58, 64); (2) those taken to contain sudden outbreaks of unknown origin that are treated as Class A diseases (art. 65); and (3) those taken to control outbreaks and epidemics (including the emergency measures mentioned earlier) (arts. 63, 66). I understand this complaint process to supplement—and not to supplant—the general remedies of administrative reconsideration or litigation under Article 17, both because the stated legislative intent was to “broaden the avenues for redress” and because Article 17 would otherwise be hollowed out (as it seems to me that Article 74 basically covers all the measures that may be challenged in court). But the revision unfortunately fails to clarify the relationship between the old and new remedies.
Article 74 further requires local governments to “ensure smooth channels for filing complaints, improve handling procedures, and guarantee the timely resolution of relevant complaints.” I was also a bit disappointed by this provision. An earlier version would’ve tasked the National Health Commission with issuing “specific measures” for the complaint procedure, thereby ensuring nationwide uniformity (Sept. 2024 Draft art. 57, para. 4). Yet, under the enacted version, that responsibility now rests with individual local governments. It’s not hard to imagine that the efficacy of the process would vary significantly across jurisdictions.
Local government authority. The revision grants local governments as low as the county-level greater power and responsibility over the prevention and control of infectious diseases. First, it authorizes lower-level governments to issue early warnings about outbreaks that may qualify as public health emergencies and to activate emergency response accordingly (arts. 9, 53), thereby bringing the IDL in line with the Emergency Response Law [突发事件应对法] and related authorities. Previously, only national and provincial authorities had that power under the IDL, raising questions about which statutory regime would govern public health emergencies.
Second, the revision also allows—and requires—lower-level governments to periodically publish data on infectious diseases within their respective jurisdictions, when, again, only higher-level authorities could previously do so (art. 57, para. 2). The revision also tasks lower-level government with releasing “accurate” data to counter false or incomplete information about outbreaks and imposes on them heightened obligation to publish more detailed data during outbreaks and epidemics (art. 57, paras. 3–4).
Finally, in the case of an emerging infectious disease or a sudden outbreak of unknown origin, local governments may now preemptively employ the measures ordinarily authorized only for Class A diseases—a decision that previously only the State Council could make (art. 65). Similarly, they may now employ “emergency measures” (as discussed earlier) to respond to major epidemics before notifying higher-level authorities—instead of obtaining the latter’s approval in advance (art. 63).
Penalties for noncompliance with control measures. The revision fills a big gap by authorizing administrative punishments for individuals and entities that disobey or fail to accept and cooperate with the preventive and control measures lawfully ordered by administrative bodies, quasi-governmental CDCs, or (in the case of confirmed or suspected cases of Class A diseases) medical institutions (art. 111). A violation will lead to a warning and a discretionary fine of up to 20,000 yuan for entities and 1,000 yuan for individuals. Previously, Chinese law (as written) didn’t penalize most violations of official orders to control epidemics (unless, for instance, noncompliance resulted in the spread of a Class A disease). That’s why the police had to twist a statutory provision that should’ve applied only during constitutional “states of emergency” to enforce the zero-Covid policy (China didn’t declare a “state of emergency” over Covid-19).
That’s all for this month’s issue. Thanks for reading!
No promises, but the next monthly recap should drop a lot sooner. 😅
As background reading, I recommend Professors Jacques deLisle and Shen Kui’s 2021 article “China’s Response to COVID-19” in the Administrative Law Review, as well as Professor Dali L. Yang’s new book, Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control (or his conversation with The Wire China about the book).
The revised IDL implies that only a subset of “major epidemics” would amount to “public health emergencies.” Under Article 9, for example, “where a major epidemic constitutes a public health emergency,” the relevant level of government is to follow other laws and regulations governing public health emergencies. But the pending Public Health Emergency Response Law (PHERL) [突发公共卫生事件应对法] (last reviewed in September 2024) defines “public health emergencies” to include “major epidemics” and yields to the IDL’s tailored provisions on responding to “major epidemics.” I hope that the next draft of the PHERL (expected in June 2025) will resolve the conflict.