Mask-wearing patients fainting in the street. Hundreds of fearful citizens lining up cheek by jowl, at risk of infecting each other, in narrow hospital corridors as they wait to be treated by doctors in forbidding white hazmat suits.

A fraught medic screaming in anguish in a break-room.

The terrifying video clips, reportedly recorded by shocked citizens from hospitals in Wuhan, the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus that has swept across China and infected 21 in nine foreign countries, went viral on Chinese social media this week and did not paint a picture of a government in control.

In one of the most heartbreaking clips, posted by Chinese-Australian cartoonist, Badiucao, but which could not be independently verified and was reportedly deleted from the Weibo social media site, the sick are seen sitting between drips and oxygen tanks next to three dead bodies covered in white sheets.