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.
we have cable internet access, major wars fought and won in 3 weeks, cable news that brings info w/in minutes, leaps in medical/technical knowledge... on top of that, we live in a society where someone else is at fault for anything that befalls us; it's easy to understand why people think that this problem should be taken care of so as to not inconvenience them...
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The Spanish Flu in 1918-1919 affected 20% of the world's population. This appears to be more virulent.
If only 20% of the worlds population gets this one, there will be 1,200,000,000 people with SARs.
The SARS death rate is currently running 4.5%, Spanish Flu ran about 2.5%. Of course, the death rate is closer to 12% in Canada and who the hell knows what the real Chinese statistics are. 4.5% of that 1.2 billion sick would mean 54 million dead. If the medical infrastructure collapses (like when we run out of respirators), that death toll would be higher.
You will need to soak all food in a bleach solution. You will want to wash your hands very often, and keep all surfaces hospital clean. Don't go out without a filter mask.
Avoid all contract with strangers, or indeed anyone for whom you cannot account for at all times. You won't be able to work in an office environment without serious risk. Most offices will eventually be closed anyway, so this will not be a problem after a while. Getting food will be a real problem, and hoarding will begin soon if it has not already. I can't recommend hoarding, but prudence would dictate that you will need to be pretty much self sufficient for a prolonged period.
Some may see this as overly pessimistic, but the next few weeks will tell the tale.
If there is no breakout, we may be OK, if there is a breakout of the diasease into South Asia, Europe and Africa, or the caseload in Canada starts rising again, we will all need to think very hard about the weeks and months ahead.
This is a very misleading statistic and is based on a wrongheaded ratio. The true death rate looks to be between 15% and 20%, based on all the figures we have as of now. Some put it at 25%. Read this article: Docs Wrangle Over SARS Death Rate. You'll never use the 4.5% figure again. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897275/posts
This is a very misleading statistic and is based on a wrongheaded ratio. The true death rate looks to be between 15% and 20%, based on all the figures we have as of now. Some put it at 25%.
Read this article: Docs Wrangle Over SARS Death Rate. You'll never use the 4.5% figure again.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897275/posts
My source for the five confirmed SARS cases is the U.S. CDC report issued a couple of weeks ago confirming the presence of a new coronavirus in at least four of the five "confirmed" SARS cases they checked.
I do not recall if they ever found the SARS virus in the fifth case. However, one of the problems with SARS has been the difficulty making a positive diagnosis early in the course of the disease (it is difficult to find the virus until a couple of weeks after a person has full blown symptoms, but that is too late to be useful).
As I recall, the same material is available on the New England Journal of Medicine's web site, and it is easier to find. I have not checked the NEJM web site in a week, and they may have new info.
Those are the only "confirmed" SARS cases I have seen mentioned in print in the U.S. Why more information has not been forthcoming I do not know (I may have just missed something, however).
Millions of deaths? Holy Cow!
Just think, the survivors could have 2-3 houses, etc. Wouldn't have to build any new houses for 75 years or so.
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