Posted on 04/19/2003 7:00:24 AM PDT by per loin
I expected something like this. Airlines and insurance companies will be the first to 'bite the dust.'
Hong Kong's health secretary, Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, said this week that sewage is responsible for SARS infecting 321 people at the Amoy Gardens high-rise apartment complex in Hong Kong. She said ventilation fans sucked particles of the virus out of a faulty sewage system and spread it throughout the building.
Snake oil salesmen beware. The Chinese government has stepped up police efforts against opportunistic streetside peddlers who have been selling everything from fake medicine to cheap surgical masks in an effort to cash in on public fears of SARS. The Beijing Legal Times reported hawkers were asking 10 yuan (about $1.80) for a mask worth one yuan, and others were selling cough medicine claiming it was a special anti-SARS potion. One man was caught asking 50 yuan for a secret tonic called Black and White, which he claimed to have obtained from a hospital stockpiling it for private use. In fact, it was a one-yuan bottle of cough syrup to which the man had added some flour. He said he had made a 1,000-yuan profit.
HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong suffered its blackest day in the SARS (news - web sites) crisis yet as 12 more deaths were announced -- the highest jump in a single day.
Forty-six people have died from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) here in the past week, more than half the 81 SARS deaths recorded in the territory since the first fatality on March 13, according to government figures.
Authorities do not include in their figures an American national who was pronounced dead on arrival at a Hong Kong hospital last week after being transferred from mainland China.
The number of dead in Hong Kong, which also has nearly 1,360 cases, now far outweighs official figures for China's toll which climbed to 67 Saturday with another death reported in state media.
But China -- which officially has more than 1,500 cases and where the death toll reached 67 with another fatality reported by state media Saturday -- was tipped to be on the verge of dramatically revising its figures on the orders of President Hu Jintao after allegations authorities were covering up the true extent of the crisis.
The speculation came as the head of the working group on SARS control in Beijing said no hospital in the capital should refuse to treat those suspected of suffering from the respiratory illness on pain of punishment, the state news agency reported.
Liu Qi, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPC, said if a suspected patient is confirmed as having SARS they must be removed to a hospital designated to deal with the outbreak.
Liu was speaking at a meeting of the heads of major hospitals in Beijing, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Singapore also reported another death Saturday, taking its toll to 14, the third highest in the world.
Hong Kong's dramatic announcement of 12 more deaths came as hundreds of thousands of residents mucked in to clean up the city's polluted streets and buildings in an attempt to put the epidemic in check.
SARS has spread like wildfire in some of Hong Kong's densely populated housing estates, with more than 300 cases in one housing block blamed on a faulty sewage system.
Ahead of the two-day weekend clean-up which will see the disinfection of housing estates, parks and commercial premises, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa acknowledged the SARS outbreak had been disastrous.
SARS has inflicted damage on the city's economy and the health and mental well-being of residents, Tung said Friday.
"No matter which way you look at it, it is a disaster," said Tung.
Hong Kong authorities meanwhile released figures showing that the mortality rate of SARS in the territory was 4.6 percent of cases, with 47.5 percent of the fatalities of people aged 65 or older.
The outbreak also threatened to have a dramatic impact on Singapore unless swift action was taken to bring it under control, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said Saturday.
"We are dealing with a crisis of fear," Goh said. "Very importantly, we have to show in the weeks to come that we are on top of the problem. The stake is very high. We cannot afford to fail in this battle."
Saturday's new deaths pushed the global toll from SARS to at least 184 while the number of infections has surged past 3,700. Other deaths are in Canada (13), Vietnam (5), Thailand (2) and Malaysia (1).
The United States, however, has reduced its official number of cases from 208 to 36 by switching to a WHO method of only counting probable cases.
Canada, the worst-hit country outside of Asia, also said it was reducing its number of cases from 306 to 304.
In other developments, Vietnam said it was considering closing its land border with China where the disease is believed to have originated in November.
And India announced a second probable case, a 42-year-old New Zealander who recently flew in from Bangkok.
The WHO has pinpointed the coronavirus -- a virus family which causes the common cold -- as the cause of SARS, which begins with fever, a cough and shortness of breath.
There is no cure, vaccine or diagnostic test for the mysterious respiratory virus.
The World Health Authority says China is expected to announce far worse figures on the number of people infected with SARS. The WHO said Chinese President Hu Jintao has ordered public officials to declare all suspected cases not to withhold information. The WHO said Chinese doctors had tried to hide patients before a visit by WHO inspectors. The SARS virus - which causes a disease resembling the common cold - originated in China. In Hong Kong, twelve people died of the disease on Saturday, a record for single day. The World Health Organisation says 3,461 people worldwide have SARS. About one in twenty people who get it, die from it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.