Posted on 04/21/2003 5:55:20 PM PDT by InShanghai
21 April 2003
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.
Ditto.
"Clinton admits Sars may spread out of control"
I never thought of that either.
Anyone who has compared the ratios of Pneumonia/SARS cases and Pneumonia/Flu cases, couldn't possibly continue to minimize SARS unless they: 1) Were not appreciative of the semantic content of the words, 2) Were in deep denial, or 3) Actually had some kind of agenda where they didn't want people warned of the potential threat.
It's just a flesh wound!
That could only happen if SARS is sexually transmitted.
From another SARS thread - there have been 14 deaths in Canada out of 129 discharged from hospitals (pretty much the same as your "lethality" statistic). This is an 11% rate. Slightly lower, and possibly attributable to the availability of better supportive care in Canada as compared to Asia. Another possibility, however, is that this difference is statistically insignificant.
OTOH, there are still no SARS deaths in the US, where the level of supportive care is better yet.
Did you learn to be this stoopid or does it come naturally?
True, but what conditions are the victims in?
Like Enron used a different accounting system to report profits.
Since China has over a hundred times the population of Hong Kong, and far lower health standards than Hong Kong, I project that the SARS incidence is over a hundred times worse. That would indicate that the actual number of cases runs into the thousands.
Moreover, while it appears that Hong Kong has the situation under control, China's refusal to acknowledge the truth may cause the situation to explode into an epidemic such as the world hasn't seen in decades.
The government's cover-up may ultimately force freedom of speech and democracy, much as the Chernobyl cover-up did in the Soviet Union's penchant for government secrecy. Suppressing the truth is simply too expensive for any society to afford, let alone a poor nation like the PRC.
In any case, I can see why the Chinese party leaders would want to ignore the problem.
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