Communists simply don't respect the
life or liberty of the individual.
Posted on 04/20/2003 10:58:47 PM PDT by PA Engineer
China sacked its Health Minister and the mayor of Beijing yesterday and cancelled a week-long May Day holiday after suddenly increasing the figure for Sars cases in the capital.
Beijing has more than 700 confirmed and unconfirmed cases, ten times more than initially admitted, putting it among the communities hit hardest in the world, behind only Guangdong province and Hong Kong. Even now there are doubts whether all the figures in China have been revealed.
The government's actions come after an emergency politburo meeting on Thursday ended weeks of lies and evasions by top officials who tried to deceive World Health Organisations experts struggling to control the outbreak.
In the meantime, the sense of panic amid the Chinese population has spiralled. Public opinion surveys conducted secretly by the government have revealed a rising tide of anger. People have stopped flying on planes and public meeting places are deserted. School and university classes have been suspended. In Beijing all the main international hotels are almost empty, while most people are wearing double face masks and disinfecting their homes and offices. People have been told to eat garlic and a turnip-type vegetable as an antidote. Foreign visits have been cancelled or postponed including that of Tony Blair who was scheduled to arrive this week.
Shopkeepers are using surgical gloves and railway staff are disinfecting stations and giving passengers random temperature checks.
The growing unease was also evident in Canada, the country affected worst outside Asia, where a 14th person has died. Fears that Toronto's health system is now infected saw a leading hospital close its critical care unit after four staff members began showing symptoms.
Meanwhile, Singapore, the country with the fourth-biggest toll, shut its wholesale vegetable market and quarantined all 2,400 workers. South Korea said it was considering a ban on some blood donations. Indonesia deployed troops to help medical staff to examine returning workers and normally bustling Hong Kong was like a ghost town .
China's admission that things were far worse came from Gao Qiang, the deputy health minister, who said an investigation ordered by leaders on 15 April had revealed 339 infections, 18 deaths and 402 suspected cases in Beijing – vastly higher than the 37 cases and four deaths reported earlier. Such public sackings and public admissions of failure are extremely rare in Chinese politics where the principle of collective responsibility is normally applied "Someone had to be held accountable," said a Chinese government source.
Mr Gao denied that his ministry had deliberately misrepresented the facts.
"There is an essential difference between inaccuracy of Sars statistics and intentional cover-up of the situation of the disease," he said. China, he explained, had simply used a different system to report cases. Zhang Winking, the Health Minister, and Ming Xenon, the Beijing deputy party secretary, had repeatedly issued statements saying the position was under control and that China was safe to visit. The Health Minister said the disease was "under effective control".
On the contrary, the disease spread rapidly in the capital but to cover it up the authorities moved patients into military hospitals and did their utmost to deny access to investigators. When they did arrive, the patients were moved out of their rooms and driven around the city.
The World Heath Organisation was alerted to the crisis at China's largest transportation hub only by the courage of a military doctor, Jiang Yanyong, 71, who took the bold step of publicly revealing the number of cases he was aware of in the military hospitals.
WHO said on Wednesday there were probably as many as 200 people in Beijing infected with Sars, although the city government was then insisting that there were only 37 cases.
At least eight of China's poorer provinces, including Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, have reported Sars cases. Officials said hospitals in those areas may not be able to cope with contagion and the influx of patients.
The handling of the crisis has dealt China's reputation a severe blow. While the top leadership is primarily concerned at the impact on foreign invest-ment and economic growth, some observers hope it may have wider consequences. Some speculate it could be used by the incoming leadership to push for glasnost in the same way President Mikhail Gorbachev exploited the Chernobyl nuclear accident to push through changes in the former Soviet Union.
Until now, political reforms have not been on the agenda of President Hu who said in a public appearance at military research institute in Beijing yesterday he was confident of China's ability to find the methods to combat Sars.
A Chinese biological Chernobyl. Those commies never change.
So glad I don't fly anymore.......I have no desire to be in a sealed tube, with 300 other people.
China's what?
Not to mentioned the re-circulated air.
Used to be, when smoking was still allowed on air transport, fresh air was being pumped into the cabin from those little blowers to lessen the effects of smoke.
Airlines stopped doing that when they banned smoking, and the incidence of airline related transmission of illness / disease rose precipitously.
Now we have the perfect test case of the airline passenger cabin as an agent for transmission of disease.
I hope I'm wrong, but so far it doesn't look like it.
Not to mentioned the re-circulated air. Used to be, when smoking was still allowed on air transport, fresh air was being pumped into the cabin from those little blowers to lessen the effects of smoke. Airlines stopped doing that when they banned smoking...
Airliners wern't redesigned when smoking was banned. IIRC the body of an airliner isn't airtight. Fresh air is continualy pumped in as air leaks out. The air in an airliner is completely changed every few minutes due to this action. Any pilots here want to confirm or debunk this?
Excuse me? Firday's figures show 182 deaths and 1749 recoveries, for an average worldwide death rate of 9%. In Canada, we have 12 deaths and 54 recoveries (18%). In Hong Kong 81 deaths and 363 recoveries (18%). The worldwide death rate averages are being brought down by China's official numbers, which are falsified, according to latest reports.
Communists simply don't respect the
life or liberty of the individual.
I think you've missed the boat on this one.
Relatively minor bug?
Not as infectious and lethal as the Spanish Flu of 1918/19?
Everything I have seen says it is much, much WORSE than the Spanish Flu. The mortality rate is much HIGHER. Many of the people who survive have major damage. The stress to the medical system is very high, with a high hospitalization rate, a multi-week stay for typical patients, and a high proportion of patients requiring intensive care. The medical staff caring for these people is at high risk of catching SARS themselves, in spite of extreme precautions.
The big questions are how many people are naturally immune, and how contagious it is to the rest of us. Extraordinary measures are currently being taken to prevent its spread, so we do not know how fast it would spread in the general population if allowed to spread naturally.
Since SARS is a new variant of the common cold, it seems logical to assume it is about as contagious as the common cold. However, the U.S. CDC has just released their finding that it survives for at least 24 hours on hard surfaces (versus the 2-4 hours expected for a common cold virus). Hence, it may be MORE contagious than the common cold.
So, please explain how SARS is minor, and less of a threat than the Spanish flu of 1918/19?
The Spanish flu eventually infected 25% of the U.S. population, and killed 2.5% of those infected. I have seen some reports saying the mortality was zooming upwards just before it died out, but I have not seen anything confirming this.
We do not know what proportion of the population is susceptible to SARS, but we know the mortality is over 4% (lots of reasons to believe it is 9% or higher). We also know it is much harder on the medical system and leaves a trail of badly injured victims in its wake.
The big difference between SARS and the Spanish flu is that SARS has not broken out into the general population (except perhaps in China). Extraordinary measures are being taken to keep it contained, but success is not guaranteed.
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