Wuhan’s top party official has come under fire after saying the government would implement “gratitude education” so citizens can properly thank the Chinese Communist party for its efforts fighting the coronavirus outbreak.

In comments published on Saturday, Wuhan party secretary Wang Zhonglin said: “The people of Wuhan are heroic people who understand gratitude,” echoing previous comments by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

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“[We] must through various channels carry out gratitude education among the citizens of the whole city as well as cadres so that they thank the general secretary [Xi Jinping], thank the communist party, listen to the party’s words, follow the party’s way, and create strong positive energy,” said Wang, who was sent to Wuhan in February to replace the former party secretary, amid rising public anger over local authorities’ handling of the crisis.

Wang’s statement was met with such scorn that the party affiliated paper that published his comments, the Changjiang Daily, appeared to remove the original article. Chinese media has reportedly been instructed not to publish the article, publish commentaries or mention the incident in anyway.

According to a translation from China Media Project, an internal directive said the report had invited “raging public opinion” on a level similar to that following “the death of a certain doctor,” a reference to whistleblower ophthalmologist, Li Wenliang, who died from Covid-19 earlier this month.

“This matter fully shows that with Wuhan now having been shut down for more than 40 days, the lives of the ordinary people have been affected to such an extent that there is resentment and anger, and all reports must consider the feelings of the people of Wuhan,” it said.

The incident is an example of how efforts by authorities to “guide public opinion” have backfired in the face of the coronavirus crisis, which emerged in Wuhan and has now claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people in China – deaths that many blame on the authorities’ sluggishness in dealing with the virus when it was first detected in December.

Chinese journalist Chu Zhaoxin wrote in a post on WeChat that was later removed: “You are a public servant, and your job is to serve the people. Now the people you serve are broken, the dead are still cold, and the tears of the living have not yet dried.”

She called on Wang to “educate himself,” adding: “Rather than blaming the people in Wuhan you serve for not being grateful, you should reflect and be ashamed because you and your team are not working properly.”

Angry citizens took to Weibo: “The people should be grateful to the medical workers, donors and other citizens. If it weren’t for [the government], the situation would not be as bad as it is,” said one. Another said: “The Hubei government wants the people of Wuhan to be grateful. Who is it they should they be thanking?”

Another writer, Fang Fang, wrote in an essay that was also removed: “First of all, the government should be grateful to the families of thousands of dead people in Wuhan … What the government should be most grateful for is the nine million people of Wuhan who are stuck at home and stay indoors. Without them, it would be impossible to contain this epidemic.”

Additional reporting by Lillian Yang