SARS and AIDS: What the (Chinese) people don't know

Asia Times ^ | April 23, 2003 | Christopher Horton

[Slyfox]

Should we be conceren about stuff that's "Made in China"?

[Dog Gone]

I don't think so. Indications are that the virus can survive 24 hours outside of a human, but I think nearly all Chinese products are shipped by sea, and that is a several week journey.

I'm not sure about food, though. We do import crawfish, which might be by air.

[Dog Gone]

If just one person infected with SARS is on any of the countless trains now leaving Beijing, these trains could significantly increase the speed of the spread of SARS throughout China's interior. The tragic irony of this exodus is that everyone leaving Beijing hopes to avoid getting SARS there, but they will in all likelihood contract and spread it throughout the country, to strangers, friends and family. Which brings us back to HIV/AIDS.

A lengthy, but insightful, article.

[Petronski]

A typical Chinese train can hold more than 600 passengers. Restrooms are less than sanitary: the floors are usually covered with urine, and toilets are non-flushing holes that usually hold some residual fecal matter....

If just one person infected with SARS is on any of the countless trains now leaving Beijing, these trains could significantly increase the speed of the spread of SARS throughout China's interior....

Assuming that SARS makes its way to every populated area of China, it is quite plausible that China's SARS deaths could experience a ferocious increase.

YIKES!

[KantianBurke]

and yet these jackasses spent all of their money on military hardware and showboating against the US. What a bunch of scumbags. In the end their society will fall apart harder than the USSR's.

[myprecious]

I was in a Dallas doctor's office and overheard the nurses chatting about SARS. One nurse had seen a Oriental woman wearing a mask in Dallas yesterday. It was very unnerving......

[Dog Gone]

Sars truth scares Beijing's public

By Holly Williams
BBC, Beijing

Businessman Yang Jiabao has lived in Beijing all his life, but this week, he decided to leave the city for somewhere safer.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or Sars, has infected nearly 700 people in China's capital. Mr Yang said that was too close to home.

Some people are trying to flee the Chinese capital

"I know several people who have caught it already," he explained. "I don't want to wait till it's my turn."

Mr Yang is not alone. Many itinerant workers have fled Beijing, while some university students from other provinces have returned home early.

After playing down the threat of Sars for months - and even enforcing a near media blackout until recently - this week the Chinese authorities made a public show of coming clean about the disease.

The Ministry of Health admitted that officials had under-reported the real number of infected people. The city's mayor has lost his job over the scandal.

But the Chinese public is unused to such frankness, and many people here find the truth terrifying.

We're more and more worried every day

Beijing resident Li Yi

Though he has managed to avoid catching Sars, Mr Yang, who runs an investment company, is already an economic victim of the disease.

He has had to cancel meetings with business partners too afraid to visit, and now he worries that his foreign partners may abandon their Chinese investments.

All over Beijing, restaurants and hotels are empty, while shopping centres struggle for business.

Still, Mr Yang said he was lucky. He has a home in the countryside where he believes he will be relatively safe from Sars.

Other people have no choice but to stay in Beijing.

In his cramped apartment, Li Yi shares just two rooms with his wife, daughter and two parents.

He said it felt smaller recently, because the family does not want to venture outside.

"We're more and more worried every day," he said, "because no one knows how many people have caught it, and no one has come up with a cure or vaccine."

The Chinese Government has finally lifted its news blackout

And as of today, Li Yi's daughter would be staying inside as well. The government has forced all of Beijing's primary and secondary schools to close for two weeks in an attempt to stop the spread of Sars via children - 1.7 million students have had their classes and mid-term exams cancelled.

For months, the Chinese Government told the public that it had Sars under control.

Now people in Beijing know that is not true, their city suddenly seems a frightening place

[RonF]

Just like the USSR, China is really an empire masquerading as a country, although the roots of the empire are much, much older. It could fly apart.

[I still care]

This whole story has reminded me of Chernobyl, where Finland had to tell the world what was going on in Russia.

[Dog Gone]

The exodus from Beijing that is occurring today may do more to spread SARS than anything else to date.

[RayChuang88]

Given China's extremely high population density in its cities and subpar sanitation, the Chinese government will rue the day they surpressed information about SARS. These are the EXACT conditions that will result in death rates akin to the infamous Spanish flu that killed between 20 and 60 million persons during 1918.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Red China doesn't give a rip about its population. Losing a million or two might be just what the PRC would like to see.

[trebb]

Should we be conceren about stuff that's "Made in China"?

Only in our sex partners.

[aristeides]

I wonder if the Chicoms got the idea of making money from blood donors from the Clintons.

[SauronOfMordor]

One interesting tidbit: the Canadian SARS outbreak seems to be centered in Toronto, home of Canada's largest gay community. Could it be that SARS is most likely to seriously affect/kill those whose immune systems are compromised by HIV?

[Dog Gone]

SARS threat to AIDS sufferers

[mabelkitty]

I'm not touching ANYTHING made in China.

[mabelkitty]

I'm not touching ANYTHING made in China.

[Betty Jo]

I think that the Toronto SARS victims had for the most part visited China or Hong Kong. I thnk I'll go back and search.

I know a large number were health care workers.

Yesterday at the CDC news onference, Dr. Goberding said it was OK to visit Toronto, as long as you stayed away from its hospitals.

Not a word about if you are gay and or have AIDS, stay away.