Long march out of Beijing, SARS snapping at heels

Schools were closed on Wednesday in Beijing, sending more than 1.7 million students home until at least the second week in May. Citywide, businesses closed or employees worked from home to avoid possible infection.

Until last Saturday, China’s government said there were only 37 cases of SARS in the capital. On Saturday that number increased ten-fold. On Wednesday, the government listed the toll in the capital alone at 693 infected and 35 dead. Nationwide, an additional 306 cases of SARS were reported, mostly in Beijing. In China overall, at least 2,305 people have been infected with SARS and 106 have died, the largest incidence of SARS in the world.

At West Station, a sea of people wearing white face masks jostled to buy tickets. Scalpers worked the crowd offering seats to faraway parts of the country, some of which also were affected by SARS. Ticket prices for choice destinations, like Yunnan province, which has had few SARS cases, were double those for places like Inner Mongolia and Shanxi where the disease is running rampant. ‘‘I’m going home,’’ said Cui Bing, 48, a labourer from Hunan in southern China. The construction project he had been working on for the past month closed because a foreman came down with SARS, he said. ‘‘They wanted us to stay in Beijing, but who wants to stay here? If you get sick, they send you to the hospital. And in the hospital, you’ll probably get SARS.’’

There was little traffic at the West Station arrivals hall. ‘‘No one wants to come here,’’ said student Luo Yan, 22, who was heading home to Zhejiang province. ‘‘Everybody just wants to leave.’’ The government had tried to stop students from returning home for the May 1 holiday but those orders apparently were ignored by thousands of students.

Chinese officials acknowledged last week they had covered up the extent of the SARS virus, in part to avoid the economic and social consequences of a travel advisory like the one WHO issued on Wednesday. As a result of the cover-up, the mayor of Beijing and the minister of health were fired and Chinese doctors say the government, at least in the capital, is starting to be more honest about the numbers.

The Beijing city government, which just days ago claimed the epidemic was under control, on Wednesday issued an eight-point declaration giving itself broad powers to isolate families and close institutions, including hotels and restaurants, that are believed to have been contaminated with SARS. Teams of inspectors fanned out through what were called high-risk areas, conducting house-to-house searches for people with symptoms of infectious diseases, the state-run nightly news broadcast reported.

In one northwestern Beijing neighbourhood, the news reported, a team of 200 workers checked 150,000 families, although it was unclear how that was carried out. Meanwhile, after an emergency meeting, China’s State Council announced it was budgeting $2.5 billion to help the poor pay for SARS treatment, to get urgent materials for ill-equipped hospitals, and to fund research on the virus.

SARS emerged in Guangdong province in November and was transmitted first to Hongkong and then by travellers to Canada and other Asian countries.

WHO has reported at least 4,288 cases of the disease in 26 countries and 251 deaths. (LAT-WP)