OBJECTIVES: In public health emergencies, adopting sealed management to close community or city can effectively prevent spread of epidemics. Some social critics think it’s against humanitarianism. Taking case of “lockdown of Wuhan, China”, this study investigates Chinese public attitudes to verify if it’s against humanitarianism.

METHODS: For each questionnaire, living region, age, gender and “whether there are medical staffs among relatives or friends” (WF) are selected be categorical variables for comparative analysis. Remaining questions are set up in accordance with nine core principles of Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS). Each question is divided into 1 to 5 points according to degree of public attitude (5 strongest, 1 lowest). The lower the score, the more considered a violation of humanitarianism. A total of 600 anonymous electronic questionnaires are sent out and collected. After reliability (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) and validity (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) test, the results are analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) which purpose is to find out whether there are different or consistent attitudes between different groups.

RESULTS: Reliability and validity of questionnaires are 0.868 and 0.883. For three groups by living region, four groups by age, two groups by gender and two groups by WF, under the same group dividing standards, there are non-significant differences (p>0.05) in answers. Average score of questionnaires is 3.40 (Wuhan), 3.46 (all regions in Hubei except Wuhan), 3.42 (all regions in China except Hubei), 3.41 (under 18-years old), 3.44 (18 to 40-years old), 3.41 (40 to 60-years old), 3.44 (over 60-years old), 3.42 (male) , 3.43 (female), 3.45 (WF=yes) and 3.42 (WF=no), all groups exceed the neutral-score (3.00).

CONCLUSIONS: This study proves that different groups all agree that “lockdown of Wuhan” is not against humanitarianism. In response to COVID-19, Chinese public believed that sealed management did not conflict with humanitarianism.