| On this vein, check out this piece from Asia Times Online. It is about all the little ironies of life... like Beijing residents saying to each other, "Back when SARS was wreaking havoc..." Given the events of the past 2 months, I hope most of us have gained a bit of healthy skepticism. Anyway... :-) (Jian Shuo, sorry for dwelling on the topic of SARS...) Beijing 2003: Year of the virus http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EE23Ad04.html ==================== Beijing 2003: Year of the virus By Asia Times Online Staff HONG KONG - Even though its severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic has not yet passed, the mood in Beijing recently has eased. On buses just a short while ago each of the very few passengers, without exception, would don a face mask. Upon boarding the vehicle, seats were available wherever one wanted to sit. Air flowed freely through the carriage, which in normal times would be hot and stuffy due to the crowding of passengers. Now Beijingers are filling the buses once again, and although the windows are all wide open, the carriage is filled with a hot, stuffy aroma of sweat. Furthermore, many people are not wearing face masks. People are heard asking bare-faced passengers: "How can you not wear a face mask?" The response is typically: "There's no problem anymore, right? SARS is already under control." Indeed, Beijing residents appear to be enjoying worry-free days. Chatter is everywhere once again - but people can't last more than a couple of sentences without mentioning SARS. A typical example of Beijing's relaxed SARS talk was witnessed by Asia Times Online in a barbershop: Customer A: "Back when SARS was wreaking havoc here my hair was getting shaggy, but I was too frightened to dare going to a barbershop. Now that it's been controlled, I thought I'd come have a look." Barber: "You can rest assured here at my shop. I disinfect this place several times every day. There's no need to wear a mask in here. I guarantee there's nothing to worry about here." Customer B: "What's with people? Whether one lives or dies is in the hands of fate. Geez, what are they afraid of? I'm not wearing a mask, but I'm not dead, am I? I've had a couple of neighbors carried away on stretchers [to hospitals], but I was wearing a mask every day at that time." At a beauty parlor, several friendly and optimistic young women were giving their all to serve and accommodate the few customers in the establishment. After a month of no work because of the spread of SARS in Beijing, they were obviously eagerly anticipating having business again. The girls telephoned old clients one by one to notify them that they were open for business again. However, because most customers were still apprehensive about SARS, those who ventured out to have a look were still quite few. One after another, the young women explained their situation: "We were constantly asking [the parlor's owner] that we open up for business again." "We need to eat. We have to support our families. How can we do anything without any income?" But customers were still concerned, asking questions such as: "Have proper authorities approved you for reopening?" "Are you sanitized? Does your disinfection meet standards?" And so on. Disinfecting bad information In a traditional hutong, or winding alley of Beijing, Asia Times Online witnessed a conversation between two of the city's elderly denizens: Old Woman 1: "Just a little while back everybody was being called on to disinfect. Everybody was disinfecting everywhere. Not one place was left untouched. But I searched over half of Beijing for disinfectant and couldn't find any. I saw stories in newspapers telling me to 'disinfect this three times daily', 'disinfect that three times daily' - I was a nervous wreck. I dialed the mayor's hotline, then I dialed the government phone line set up for city residents and I even dialed 315 [Beijing's consumer complaint hotline]. If the line wasn't busy then nobody was answering." Old Man: "You really called the mayor?" Old Woman 1: "I did. But the line was constantly busy. There's a lot of people wanting to talk to the mayor, you know. For over 10 days I was unable to disinfect. This really scared me. I was afraid that everyone else was disinfecting and that SARS would flee to my home. Then what would I do? Now the papers say that there are over 100 stores that had disinfectant. I found a pharmacy that was on a list in a newspaper. I went right away and just bought 10 bottles of the stuff!" Old Woman 2: "Well done, but you need to hurry up and go disinfect! Kill the SARS! Old Woman 1: "I plan on it, but the papers also said that you shouldn't go crazy with disinfectants - some cause allergic reactions, some can send you into shock, some even have fumes that can make you pass out! How do I know if I'm going to have an allergic reaction? Didn't the TV say that we need to be careful of passing out or getting sick from the fumes of the disinfectants we're using to avoid getting sick? I don't know how to use the stuff!" In the interest of getting an understanding of all the disinfecting they've been doing, some people are taking their questions to journalists. Here's one exchange witnessed by Asia Times Online between a Beijing reporter and a Beijing resident. Resident: "Comrade reporter, in your newspapers, television shows and pronouncements, you stressed the urgency for and importance of immediate disinfection with industrial strength disinfectant. In your reports and articles you said to disinfect three times, five times, or even more. Later, people started having allergic reactions, some went into shock and others were rendered unconscious from inhaling fumes. Then you said not to overdo it. What? Is it that from the beginning, you have not been reporting clearly and accurately about such disinfection and the precautions that should be taken when doing it?" Reporter: "Indeed, it's difficult to avoid a situation in which the public is misinformed somewhat. But the media should serve the function of scientifically and responsibly leading the masses." Resident: "There're also several situations that we in Beijing don't know anything about, such as the bloody slaughtering of pets and animals in Nanjing, Chengdu, Xi'an and other cities. Engaging in horrible slaughter like this isn't euthanasia. Beijing's abandoned pets have been bearing the negative effects of this lack of knowledge." Reporter: "We in the media have invited several experts to provide explanations." Reader: "But all these experts do is express their individual opinions. Every expert has a different idea about what to do. Those who advocate killing animals and those who don't advocate killing animals all have their own logic. We common Chinese are accustomed to hearing one authoritative voice coming from the government or from a government-sanctioned expert. I hope you in the media will do some solid work without speculating, sugar-coating or swerving from one opinion to the next. Now you're always correcting previous mistakes - we common folk don't know what to think anymore." The ever-shifting sands of Chinese journalism But it can also be difficult for the media to get an authoritative answer from the government, as the aforementioned reporter discovered in a discussion with a friend serving as a party cadre in Beijing's Haidian district. Reporter: "How is it that there is such a disproportionately high SARS infection rate in the Haidian district?" Cadre: "You can't just look at bare facts. Our district has the most hospitals, so it is only natural for us to receive the highest number of SARS cases for treatment. Furthermore, people living outside of the city are aware of the high quality of Beijing hospitals, so they are determined to come here for treatment. Now we are already calculating patient statistics according to where the patients live." Haidian's hospitals said they are compiling SARS cases according to where the patient is from, but the local governments of patients that come to Beijing subscribe to the idea that if someone from their area has SARS but is being treated in Beijing, then they shouldn't have the patient attributed to their constituency in statistics. This lack of a unified statistical methodology does not lend itself to accurate statistics, as it creates a situation where a SARS patient from nearby Hebei province that might go to a hospital in Haidian for treatment is not included in Beijing's statistics, nor those of his or her native province. A Beijing resident asked the cadre: "Can news be trusted?" Cadre: "When I listen to outside broadcasts, they are always saying that Beijing media are irresponsible in reporting. [To the reporter] You're a journalist - do you think our media reports are worth believing?" Reporter: "In all honesty, there were some inaccurate reports in the beginning. Why? Well, SARS just came out of nowhere and caught the media off guard. Many journalists did not recognize the severity of the situation. Not enough reporters thought it important. On top of that, there's bureaucracy and much of the early writing about SARS was not done in earnest, etc, etc. It's always in society and abroad that Chinese media draw censure. But I believe that after the center of the Communist Party, the State Council [China's cabinet], took emergency measures media reports became trustable." Cadre: "But there is still quite a bit of suspicion harbored toward our news reports in the foreign press, no?" Reporter: "Being on the receiving end of all kinds of suspicion is not unusual. In the end the facts will speak for themselves. It's quite a joke how foreigners don't understand the situation in China whatsoever. Lying and making false reports about an outbreak can ensure a reporter's job security. It can even lead to a promotion. So outbreak reports and patient statistics are certainly unreliable. You can't say that it wasn't like this before. Now the central government's policy and measures state that dishonesty, misleading reports and embellishment are grounds for firing reporters. Reporters can even receive punishment via the legal system now. Now the believability of reports on the epidemic and patient statistics is quite high." Cadre: "So nowadays, what is reported [by hospitals] is exactly what we see reported in the media, right?" Reporter: "There's no need to get into that issue." Public hygiene, the Olympics, and war with the US SARS isn't without a silver lining, as a conversation with a Beijing couple illustrates: Wife: "Maybe something will be done in our country regarding our attitude toward the nasty habit of spitting our mucus wherever we want. In the several decades since the [communist] revolution, China has endured every sort of natural disaster and human calamity imaginable, yet nothing can be done about our spitting problem? This is a deep-seated bad habit among the Chinese people. It seems as if this has never been an issue for our government - nothing has ever been attempted to end it. Seeing as it took China reaching the cusp of a life or death situation before the government decided to adopt measures and forbid spitting in public, at least in this regard SARS can be said to have made a big contribution." Husband: "Could it have happened any other way? Even having the 2008 Olympics looming on the horizon didn't prompt the government to do anything about this bad habit. [Regarding the Olympics], the media painted a picture of a government of such massive strength and deep pockets which it speculated that over time could get the elderly to learn English for free. This was repeated in television and newspaper reports time and time again. How much real significance did any of it have? Why didn't the government and media work a little more with reality and facts and promote the notion of Chinese people not spitting wherever they would like to spit? I'm truly worried that if Chinese don't change this habit, we will lose face in front of the entire world in 2008." Wife: "I really hope that these extreme hygiene measures put into place persist through 2008." Husband: "I'm not terribly confident in it. Just look - how many people can urban administrators control? How many can it punish? Just a few train stations and some malls, but the majority of places are unable to be controlled. As soon as SARS has passed, there won't even be people enforcing public hygiene in those train stations or malls anymore, will there? When I look at Shanghai, I have hope. They have competent measures there. I have little hope for Beijing. The measures here are weak, just like the supervision. If you take a look at the attempts made here at prohibiting spitting, sealing off trash chutes in stairwells and battling those who sell sham products to profit from SARS, the measures all fall short and the punishment isn't stiff enough. During the Korean War when we fought the Americans, China executed anyone selling fake medicine, faulty bandages or low-quality cotton balls. In the 'People's War' against SARS, we can't just talk and do nothing else. We can't just make an initial rallying cry and hope for the best. We need to come back to reality." Translated by Christopher Horton. |
6 SARS Cases in Shanghai