Entire buildings quarantined in Beijing
Friday, April 25, 2003
china.scmp.com
JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing
Beijing has started to quarantine entire buildings that have been exposed to the Sars virus, including a hospital with as many as 3,000 people inside.
Police surrounded the People's Hospital yesterday morning and sealed the exits, shutting in an estimated 2,000 medical staff and more than 1,000 patients. The move came after an emergency quarantine plan was approved on Wednesday at a meeting chaired by Beijing Party Secretary Liu Qi and acting Mayor Wang Qishan.
At the meeting, the government determined isolation was the most effective way to protect the population, and is prepared to quarantine any venue where cases were confirmed or suspected, the Beijing Daily reported yesterday.
The government has also restricted access to 4,000 construction sites in the city where individual Sars cases have been reported, it added.
The measure is in preparation for the anticipated peak of the outbreak in Beijing. The government is planning to free up another 1,200 beds for new patients. A doctor at a major hospital yesterday confirmed that the municipal government was planning to move new Sars patients to hospitals in suburban areas.
Beijing recorded 89 new cases and four deaths yesterday, pushing the total to 774 cases and 39 deaths, according to figures released by the Ministry of Health. The mainland total of cases rose by 125. There were no deaths reported outside Beijing. The accumulated number of Sars cases in China stood at 2,422 with 110 dead.
Guangdong yesterday reported 15 new cases, Shanxi five, Inner Mongolia 11 and Henan two, while Guangxi, Fujian, and Anhui each reported one new case.
Officials are concerned by the number of migrant workers leaving Beijing and possibly carrying the virus back to their home provinces.
Hong Tao, principal research fellow of the Institute of Virology of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, yesterday said the city was approaching a critical period.
"Everything depends on whether we can control the outbreak. If not, the problem will be huge," he said. One mainland government scientific think-tank predicted that the epidemic would peak on May 6, according to a medical source.
"We are not sure about the prediction yet, but people generally believe the peak will arrive in early May,'' he said.
The extent of the quarantine measures in Beijing remains unclear as the government refuses to reveal which buildings are affected. Observers said the government does not want to divulge this information out of fear of spreading panic.
But the signs of quarantine activity are hard to miss.
Outside Likelong supermarket, security guards and supermarket employees were seen busy packing ration boxes - each containing milk, eggs, meat, oil and bread - to send to a quarantined hospital.
Dozens of officials in face masks and surgical coats were seen evacuating about 100 vendors in Taiyanggong fresh produce market yesterday afternoon. Vendors said they were notified to leave only yesterday morning, and they did not know where they were going. "They just came here suddenly and we don't know why," said a grocery store owner.
The officials supervising the evacuation said they had heard there were Sars cases in the market, but they refused to confirm that was the reason for the evacuation. Traffic to Beijing was disrupted yesterday but officials denied widespread rumours that the entire city would be quarantined. In Dongzhimen coach station, coach service to Taixing in Jiangsu was stopped while a notice was put up outside a ticket sales booth saying more routes would be halted.
Coach services to Wuxi city in Jiangsu were also disrupted: an international express coach from Beijing was refused entry to Wuxi yesterday.
Meanwhile, Vice-Premier Wu Yi said every citizen must join the campaign against Sars and improve public hygiene.
She demanded all government departments, military units and public organisations work together with the government to curb the spread of the disease.
The vice-premier called for "tough action" against rumour-mongers and unscrupulous businessmen engaged in hoarding. |
