On October 10, the Shangqiu City Intermediate People's Court in Henan Province publicly pronounced its first-instance verdict in the bribery case of Zhou Xianwang, former vice chairman of the CPPCC Hubei Provincial Committee, sentencing him to 14 years in prison for accepting bribes, along with a fine of 5 million yuan, with his illegal gains to be turned over to the state treasury. Zhou Xianwang once served as mayor of Wuhan and was heavily criticized in the early stage of the epidemic for concealing the outbreak and punishing whistleblowing doctors.