Posted on 04/24/2003 10:52:27 AM PDT by Smogger
BEIJING, April 24 — China sealed off a major Beijing hospital Thursday, swiftly implementing a policy of quarantining SARS-affected areas to contain a disease threatening to erupt across the nation of 1.4 billion residents. In Hong Kong and Singapore, meanwhile, health experts said the disease may be even deadlier than initially thought.
HOURS AFTER the World Health Organization advised against visiting Beijing, police took positions around the People’s Hospital of Peking University to stop people going in or out. Worldwide, the death toll has passed 260, with more than 4,300 cases of infection reported.
The hospital is not one of those set aside to treat SARS patients but it has at least 60 confirmed or suspected cases among nurses and doctors.
The hospital was being disinfected and its patients and more than 2,000 employees moved to one of six hospitals in Beijing designated to handle SARS, the university said.
It did not say how many patients were involved, but the Web site for People’s Hospital says it has more than 1,000 beds.
“No one is allowed to enter or leave,” a member of the staff told Reuters by telephone. “There are policemen and security guards standing outside.”
Visitors left bags of food and clothes, which the guard handed through the gate to masked hospital employees.
Nationwide, China has reported 110 deaths and more than 2,400 people sickened from SARS. Beijing, a city of 14 million people, has reported almost 775 SARS cases and 39 deaths, and the number of infections is mounting by scores daily. Shanxi, west of the capital, has about 160 cases and seven deaths, the government says.
Anxious Beijing residents cleared supermarket shelves of food amid unease about possible shortages.
“You should have seen it. Lines at the cash registers stretched all the way to the store’s back wall,” said a clerk at a Jingkelong Supermarket.
DEATH RATE REVISED
Health officials revised Hong Kong’s SARS death rate to 7.2 percent of all reported cases, from about 5 percent earlier. Officials fear it may rise further.
The Health Department has been reporting the number of deaths divided by the number of cases, but some doctors have questioned this formula, saying some people already in hospitals would still die and push the numbers higher.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
Yeah yeah! I know we don't want to panic the sheep. Screw that! I am an adult, gimme the worst case scenario.
It's my God given right to panic!
A 7.2% fatality rate (and rising) is extremely high) IMHO especially since they are not even sure how it is transmitted. Let's put it this way if you work in an office with a 100 people that become infected 7 of them will die. NOT GOOD ODDS MY FRIENDS.
Probably because the idiots holding the reins are more interested in losing a buck then a life.Another point in fact from the socialist state of MD. Possible SARS cases now in MD
Oh nooooo, you have it all wrong. You see it is all the non -existant media hype and sensationalism. This isn't real, nothing bad could ever happen to us, we are Americans. We just watch bad things happen from our keyboards and tv screens.
No. You don't think so do you?
From elsewhere in the same article:
"WHO’s recommendation Wednesday to postpone non-essential travel to Beijing, Shanxi and Toronto will be in effect for at least three weeks, twice the maximum incubation period, said David Heymann, WHO’s director of communicable diseases.
With the new warning, Toronto becomes the first place outside Asia on the list. The city was also the first place outside Asia where the disease was detected.
Canada has reported 15 deaths, all of them in the Toronto area, and 306 suspected or probable cases. Of those, 136 are in Ontario province, which includes Toronto.
Canadian officials said they were disappointed with the WHO warning and hoped to persuade it that the initiative was unnecessary.
“Health Canada does not support the WHO’s position; it is safe to travel to Toronto,” Canada’s health agency said in a statement. “We have a clear understanding of the specific settings in which this virus has been transmitted in Canada and confidence in the steps being taken to manage infection control.”
But does that explain why a thread like this gets pulled from the breaking news on Freerepublic?
April 24, 2003
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