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Posted on 04/27/2003 2:30:44 PM PDT by sarcasm

EIJING, April 27 - In a desperate, if not always well informed, attempt to fend off the contagion of SARS, many villages surrounding Beijing have built makeshift barricades and posted sentinels to keep out strangers, especially those from the stricken capital city.

``Everyone around here is really tense,'' said an unsmiling farm woman who was guarding the main entrance to the village of Guchang, about 10 miles north of Beijing. Other routes into the hamlet were blocked today with large piles of dirt, topped by signs saying ``People and cars not from this village are forbidden to enter.''

Residents' cars are allowed into these villages only after the tires are sprayed with disinfectant, a method used to fight livestock diseases that seems unlikely to affect the spread of the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome.

But such tire-spraying is now widely used in and around Beijing, including at the entrances to many elite housing compounds, and may serve a craving for any tangible measures against an invisible and terrifying foe.

Adding to the uncertainty and nervousness throughout the greater metropolitan region, the Beijing government has yet to release details about where exactly the SARS cases are and how the virus is thought to have been contracted. But the now-daily official reports giving the numbers of new cases and deaths have not been reassuring.

In the 24 hours from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, today's dispatch said, Beijing registered an additional 126 confirmed cases and 8 deaths from the disease. This takes the city's total to 1,114, with 56 deaths - 5 more fatalities than seen in Guangdong province, where the virus started its rampage last fall and where total cases have now reached 1,382, with new cases starting to ease off.

In Taiwan, where the island's first SARS death was announced today and the case load is 55 and rising, the authorities imposed one of the most stringent international quarantine policies seen anywhere.

In a step bound to cause major personal and economic disruptions, Taiwan has banned visits by people from the four places with the most SARS cases - mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada, Prime Minister Yu Shyi-kun said today.

Taiwan citizens returning from any of those four areas will be placed in quarantine for 10 days regardless of their health.

Here in Beijing, officials continued with their all-out effort to fight the virus. In addition to the isolation of thousands of people who came into contact with SARS patients, the city now has closed down Internet bars, movie theaters, dancing halls and other public venues. It has also multiplied the fine for spitting in the street, a popular practice that may be hard to curb even with the new penalty of $6 per offense.

In the village of Yuzhuang, about 11 miles north of Beijing, one entrance off the main road from the capital was blocked today with a long pipe and several vigilant residents, some carrying spray bottles of disinfectant.

Another entrance was blocked with a large pile of branches, freshly cut for the emergency, while a third small lane, blocked by a pipe, was patrolled by a lone man who wore a protective mask in the fresh rural air.

``Nobody here has caught the disease yet,'' said Chou Wei, a Yuzhuang resident who has returned there from the university she attends in Beijing. ``And we don't want any outsiders to bring the infection in.''

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