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Hunan: Between Guangdong and a hard
place
By Miao Ye
HONG KONG - In the words
of an employee of Hunan province's severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS) prevention office,
"Nowadays, you shouldn't come to Hunan - there's no good
reason to come here." Hunan began to restrict visitors
from outside the province before May 1. If it was
absolutely necessary that an outsider enter the
province, it was required that they go into quarantine.
Seemingly healthy people were to be quarantined for one
week, while visitors suspected of being infected with
SARS were to be quarantined for two weeks or longer. The
SARS prevention office employee added that this rule was
effective until Friday, May 9. As for what was to be
done with visitors after Friday, that would be
determined by the next directive from above.
In
the provincial capital of Changsha, the rule is that all
visitors from SARS-affected areas must live in
self-imposed quarantine for one week. Moreover, all
government workers and visitors from SARS-affected
regions are required to make declarations to local
authorities. However, soon this rule will also be null
and void. Changsha's self-quarantine policy has drawn a
considerable amount of criticism. Residents of the city
believe the self-quarantine concept is nothing more than
an attempt by the city government to shirk
responsibility. Hunan is feeling pressure after the
dismissal of several officials, but on the other hand
many other provinces and cities with a forced quarantine
policy are on the receiving end of much criticism.
Changsha's decision was indeed a difficult one, with no
attractive options.
A person at the SARS
prevention office in Changde, a city situated in the
northwest of the province, said that the entry of
outsiders into the city is strictly controlled,
especially if the visitor is from a SARS-affected area,
such as Guangdong, Beijing or Inner Mongolia. On
arrival, every visitor must register and enter
quarantine. Everyone that is quarantined stays in the
same facility - a two-star hotel near the train station.
The hotel is a fully funded enterprise of the local tax
bureau. The daily rate for a room at the hotel is 200
yuan (US$24), blatant profiteering by Changde's price
standards.
The hotel-cum-quarantine center is
run by Changde's public security bureau, which strictly
enforces the rules. Nobody is allowed to enter or exit
at will. When asked, the hotel's staff denies that it is
an officially designated quarantine zone. Hotel
employees merely give the evasive response that any of
Changde's hotels are free to accept quarantined
visitors.
According to an April 30 report in
Guangzhou's New Express, cities such as Pan Yang, Harbin
and Wuhan are all enforcing strict quarantine measures
on people visiting from SARS-affected regions. However,
Asia Times Online has discovered that some places are
already diluting their original anti-SARS measures. In
response to inquiries, SARS prevention offices in
Harbin, Wuhan and Shanghai replied that if on
examination a visitor appears to be healthy, there is no
need for placing them in quarantine. However, they
suggested that if someone from a SARS-affected region
had no urgent business elsewhere, they best stay at
home. They added that quarantine was advisable for
people experiencing fever-like symptoms, or people who
exhibit SARS-like symptoms en route from one city to
another. Under normal conditions, they said, there
should be no curbs on China's domestic travel. Only
Panyang maintained that all visitors from SARS-affected
areas should be quarantined on arrival
According
to Hubei's SARS prevention office, if a visitor from an
affected region hasn't encountered people infected with
the virus and is not displaying any symptoms of the
illness, then they can proceed to a hotel that is
conducting preventive examinations immediately after
arrival. It is the responsibility of the hotel, however,
to provide comprehensive daily reports of its guests'
body temperature and general health condition.
Compared with the situation in other provinces
and municipalities, Hunan province's anti-SARS measures
are inconvenient for the numerous people who have to
visit the province on official business. Owing to its
shared border with hard-hit Guangdong province, it is
quite reasonable for Hunan to adopt tougher preventive
measures. But the way that common people in the province
see it, Changsha's self-quarantine policy is more of a
self-deception policy - it indicates that the
authorities are avoiding what locals see as their
responsibility.
Translated by Christopher
Horton.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
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