Yesterday afternoon the Mainland government cancelled the May one week holiday - “to prevent non-essential travel and contain SARS” . There was an apparently live English language news confrence on CCTV 4 here.
They admit to 2 cases in Shanghai - the WHO team comes to Shanghai today so I guess there will be another “dramatic and unexpected” increase by tonight.
Some religiously motivated group killed 3000+ people in a foriegn country and they are terrorists.
A government kills a significant number of people in foreign countries by hiding knowledge of a new killer virus. What are they?
Seems like the difference between murder and manslaughter to me - at best.
PRC statement in The Jakarta Post:
thejakartapost.com/detailedi … F11&irec=3
China objects
This is in response to the letter Taiwan and global health published in The Jakarta Post on March 29, 2003. The article made use of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) as a pretext to criticize the Chinese government, and to advocate Taiwan’s entry into the World Health Organization (WHO), whose membership is strictly confined to sovereign states. I wish to present our views and clarification on this matter.
The Chinese government attaches great importance to SARS. After the outbreak of the epidemic, the Chinese government implemented effective measures to protect the health and lives of the people. As a result, the epidemic is under control. The number of new infections has dropped dramatically, the number of patients recovering has increased and the rate of deaths has decreased substantially.
So far, there is no detection of infective cases of SARS in most parts of China. The Chinese people are living and working in a normal manner. It is therefore safe to work, travel and do business in China.
There is excellent cooperation between China and WHO. The two sides have accumulated rich experience in the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Following the outbreak of SARS, WHO dispatched experts to China on three separate occasions at the invitation of the Chinese government to discuss and explore measures to control the spread of SARS with Chinese experts.
WHO experts spoke highly of what the Chinese government has done in terms of prevention and treatment of SARS and the cooperation with WHO. Chinese scientists are working hard to find out the exact cause of SARS, as well as the methods to prevent and treat it.
Blood is thicker than water. The Chinese people across the Taiwan (Formosa) Straits are blood brothers. There is no such question as to a lack of access for Taiwan to the information on the prevention and treatment of SARS on the mainland.
The central government and people throughout mainland China are very concerned about the health and the welfare of our Taiwanese compatriots. There is very good communication in the field of health across the straits. The exchanges of health experts across the straits amounts to thousands of people each year. The channel of information exchange is convenient and smooth. We are sincerely ready to offer as much help as we can in the prevention and treatment of the epidemic to meet the needs of our Taiwanese compatriots.
MA JISHENG, Counselor for Political Affairs, Chinese Embassy, Jakarta
When??
[quote]I predict 5,000 dead in Taiwan from SARS before the end of this year, with 800 of them being foreigners. We are all gonna lost friends. If you don’t believe me, read between the lines in the news reports in all the newspapers now. THIS IS IT. We are in for major major deathville.
Please disagree with me.
Okay, I am freaking out, I admit. Please, post what you know, and what you are hearing from those who speak Chinese here. The news media is holding back, naturally. They do not want to cause alarm. BUT…[/quote]
Far from holding back, the news media constructed this paranioa and dragged a rather unwilling medical fraternity into it. The chinese medical establishment should be praised for resisting but at last has folded with the head of the establishment now decapitated. The Taiwanese medical authorities also at first resisted but were forced to pretend SARs existed for political purposes with cash rewards for reporting ‘suspected’ and ‘probable cases’.
How many actual cases??? and after over one month you all still believe the phantom exists.
SCATTERBRAINS.
And who are the teachers here??? God help us!
Doctors in Hong Kong are now killing patients at an ever greater rate with chemical cocktails and experimental potions. Will there ever be an investigation?
Will they ever admit that SARS never existed in the first place?
How many people suffered respitory problems as a result of ‘flu’ during this same period last year.
Has anyone bothered to ask.
What in the name of science has happened to us in this media-saturated world? You dull and complacent, unquestioning, gullible purveyors of all the latest Chinese Whispers!
How to Fail The People
The new leaders promised better, but did worse than their elders in their first big crisis. In this fiasco, the economy and the well-being of foreigners seem more important than public health
By Susan V. Lawrence/BEIJING
Issue cover-dated April 24, 2003
CHINA’S LEADER Hu Jintao finally spoke up about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or Sars. Five months after China recorded the world’s first known case and nearly two months after a doctor from the city of Guangzhou is believed to have carried Sars to Hong Kong, Hu told the territory’s Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa in Shenzhen that “the central government attached great importance to the well-being and health of the people in Hong Kong.”
(The only reason for saying this is that they obviously didn
The active agent of SARS, an previously unknown coronavirus, is real and not imagined. Since it is able to cause the same disease in monkeys and fulfills certain tests we can conclusively say it is the major cause of the disease. This is not the flu and is a deadly new disease.
I agree with you though that the drug treatments that the doctors were using probably had absolutely no affect except to worsen their condition! Ribavarin, the main anti-viral drug is a carcinogen and I would be hesitant to take it if I had SARS as it certainly doesn’t seem to make much difference to your prognosis. These type of drugs can be really toxic, especially in combination (quite similar to AIDs drugs). Is this the real cause of the increased death rate, quite possibly. However I have heard that Canada has had the highest death rate of SARS patients. In the US, from 180 cases there has not been one fatality. I think the difference in medical care can not be huge between Canada and the US so it’s unclear what is causing these strange patterns of deaths. This disease sure is complicated.
More from the Communists on SARS and Taiwan:
thejakartapost.com/detailedi … F11&irec=3
[color=red]
More on global health
[/color]
Thank you for publishing our letter China objects (The Jakarta Post, April 21). However, two important paragraphs were deleted which we would like to appear in the paper. The two paragraphs are as follows:
“The Taiwan authorities, on one hand, refuse to cooperate with the mainland on the issue of SARS, while on the other, they unfoundedly accuse the Chinese government for concealing the state of SARS. They are also making this matter an excuse for Taiwan’s attempt to edge into the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO is a UN specialized agency and only sovereign states are eligible for its membership. The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate representative of the whole of China to the WHO. As a region of China, Taiwan has no qualification whatsoever to participate in the international organizations that are only confined to sovereign states. Clearly, any attempt in this regard is unwise and will not succeed.”
MA JISHENG,
Counselor for Political Affairs, Chinese Embassy, Jakarta
Is it pathetic? Is it a farse? What would you call it?
Nothing surprises me at all! I hope now that the international community will have shed some of their false illusions regarding the “Middle Kingdom”!
Greed and blind faith cloud the ability to reason clearly…
The facts, the voices were always there but many purposefully turned a blind eye ‘a la dot.com’ hoping that fantasy would become reality!
This is not, I repeat, not an isolated incident but a perfect example of what is the “Middle Kingdom” from top to bottom, inside out…
Businessmen make money, it is simply a question of a risk/return analysis! The biggest danger is underestimating risk… A miscalculation which simply results in a failed investment - one lost money, one did not make money!
IFI & Morgan is one of my favorite companies for they thrive in an environment where most perish! I have learned much from these ‘old China hands’!
More than 2,400 quarantined in Singapore
SINGAPORE: More than 2,400 people who could have been exposed to the deadly SARS virus at a Singapore market have been put under a 10-day quarantine, the government said yesterday amid fears the disease could be spreading beyond hospitals.
The Pasir Panjang wholesale market, which supplies at least 70% of Singapore’s vegetable needs, was shut down on Saturday after a man working there was diagnosed with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
Bullet man 
i remember reading asimov’s foundation series (namely the rivalry between Spacers and Settlers)
It really reminds of the global situation today and what might happen in near future.
On one hand, you have countries like China, India whose populations outnumber other countries by a large factor, who are just starting to upgrade standard of living (and this consume more), and wish to have the same things the richest societies have (cars, houses, vacations, etc).
Cf. this to “western” nations where birthrates are dramatically down, populations are low compared to land (esp. in US and Canada), individual rights are much more important relative to ‘general stability and well-being of the whole society’ (and that can mean many things). and the great divide between these 2 groups really can be reflected in the Spacer-Settler competition described by Asimov.
the SARS epidemic kind of highlights this too. E.g. China, with such a large and crowded population (high density urban areas) with poor hygiene, can “easily” weather a SARS epidemic (relative to its population) or even produce some immunity because of the constant conditioning to diseases when living in China. cf this with other nations where a superspreader would wreak more havoc in areas where population is low and any large amounts of death would have a visibly “greater impact”.
Combine this also with the probably (IMHO) energy war of the future since the entire world cannot live like most americans do (although many countries would like that standard of living)…
and again you get that Spacer and Settlers metaphor… I am just daydreaming. (not deliberately using US-China to foment war between the two, but that the 2 illustrate the most contrast)
The WHO is obviously the carrier of this disease - Every time it goes to a new Mainland China city the number of people infected in that city increase tenfold
Not a bad point!
Gonna send some Guanxi your way for that little gem
I’ll post links to a few recent articles below and proffer a few of my own opinions.
The Chinese government announced on Sunday that it would cancel the week long May Day holiday to stop the spread of SARS. It then did an about face and said there would still be a five day holiday. Although the government is encouraging people not to travel.
Many articles have appeared in the foreign media criticising the Chinese government for its handling of SARS. China’s international image has suffered serious damage and exposed the failings of the Communist Party.
Bug is here to stay, indefinitely
Says SARS won’t go away. The only question remaining is how serious the problem will be. It could just remain in a few locations wiht sporadic outbreaks or in the worst case create a global health emargency.
Symptoms acute, respire separately
hysteria over the disease in Beijing
About-Face in China
Communist Party forced to admit mistakes
China’s ‘culture of silence’ aids SARS spread: press
Foreign journalists criticise China’s media environment.
SARS is surely here to stay.
It hasn’t entered Africa or India yet but when it does how will they prevent it’s spread? What happens if SARS piggybacks on the millions of HIV immune compromised people in Uganda and South Africa?
China is advanced compared to those regions.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]It hasn’t entered Africa or India yet but when it does how will they prevent it’s spread? What happens if SARS piggybacks on the millions of HIV immune compromised people in Uganda and South Africa?
China is advanced compared to those regions.[/quote]
Too late.
hinduonnet.com/stories/2003042305780100.htm
[color=red]
Centre convenes meet on SARS tomorrow
[/color]
NEW DELHI April 22. Even as three new suspected cases of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome were reported from Delhi, Jaipur and Nasik, the Union Health Minister, Sushma Swaraj, today announced that a meeting of the State health authorities had been convened here on Thursday to discuss and chalk out an action plan to tackle the killer disease.
Responding to members’ concern in the Lok Sabha during zero hour, Ms. Swaraj said she would personally meet all the Ministers and the Health Secretaries to discuss steps to prevent the spread of the disease.
Sharing the concerns expressed by members over the detection of four cases of SARS so far in the country, she said the “Government has taken all effective measures to deal with the situation and it will not be found lacking in future also.”
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2966527.stm
[color=red]
Sars mars Indian wedding
[/color]
An Indian wedding party has been quarantined after the bride tested positive for the Sars virus.
Health officials waited outside a church for the ceremony to finish before taking the bride to hospital.
She and two members of her family are all said to be infected by the deadly pneumonia virus, bringing the total number of Sars cases in India to four.
Last week, the first confirmed Sars case in India was reported from the coastal state of Goa.
Not only is SARS here to stay, it’s here to mutate and spread worldwide. We are in this now for the long haul. There is no more scaremongering. The facts are out there for anyone to see now…
Now Toronto has been called an OFF LIMITS travel area by WHO, after China and Hong Kong. Who’s next?
This thing is the eggplant that ate Chicago and we are toast, folks!
Formosa,
Have a little faith!!!
So now there’s 9 new cases in taipei. This new spike in the number infected causes some concern, cuz they might have been in contact with lots of other people and SARS might spread exponentially like it did in HK…
Formosa,
Have a little faith!!!
…wrote Braxtonhicks.
FORMOSA replies: I hear ya, I hear ya, Braxtonhicks.
And I do have faith. In the long term, we shall persevere, yes. I am not worried. It’s just the short-term that goes me perplumexed!
ADDED one hour later: see below: ouch!