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Asia Times Online: We 'fabricate', you
decide
By Asia Times Online Staff
HONG KONG - On May 30, the Chinese version of Asia Times
Online was the first news source
to report an outbreak of severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS) in Beijing similar to that of Hong
Kong's Amoy Gardens.
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From the Chengdu Daily's "No
coverup exists in Beijing's Beiyuan Gardens", June
5:
According to Xinhua Net
information, on June 4, sources at the Beijing
Centre for Disease Control (CDC) affirmed that
Beijing Municipality Chaoyang District's Beiyuan
Gardens SARS statistical data is accurate and
published in a timely manner. The so-called
outbreak coverup is purely erroneous propaganda
and rumor fabrication. An Asia Times
Online reporter has in recent days
written a story which said the rapid outbreak at
Beijing's Beiyuan Gardens may possibly be as
serious as that of Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong:
"There are people who have intentionally covered
up the outbreak to the point where it is not
reflected in official numbers whatsoever."
Beijing CDC has confirmed that the total
confirmed SARS cases in Beiyuan Gardens in the
Chaoyang District of Beijing are seven, to date,
with seven suspected cases. The aforementioned
cases have all been reported and hospitalized, and
the Chaoyang District CDC has reported them to the
municipal CDC. The cases are reflected in that day
(May 5)'s national Health Ministry's outbreak
statistics released to the outside at four o'clock
in the afternoon.
| After breaking the story
(see the English version, New SARS disaster looms in
Beijing, June 3), Beijing's
municipal health bureau and the Beijing Center for
Disease Control (CDC) accused Asia Times Online of
"fabricating rumors", adding that Beijing had not
experienced such an outbreak.
In referring to
the outbreak as being similar to that which occurred in
Amoy Gardens, where in March more than 300 people were
infected with SARS, of whom 35 eventually died, ATol was
merely borrowing terminology from Beijing's acting
mayor, Wang Qishan. Wang, in a speech at an April 30
news conference in Beijing referred to situations in
which there was cross-infection and resident panic as
being "Amoy Gardens-esque". Indeed, current official
reports confirm ATol's claim that Beiyuan Gardens,
located in the Laiguangying area of Beijing's Chaoyang
District, is experiencing an "Amoy Gardens-esque"
outbreak characterized by cross-infection and resident
panic.
As ATol has also reported regarding
disease prevention at Beiyuan Gardens, there has been a
contagious outbreak of responsibility shirking. From the
municipal health bureau and municipal CDC on down to the
Laiguangying SARS prevention office and the property
development company responsible for the residential
complex, which houses over 20,000 people, there has been
a consistent unwillingness to take responsible action in
order to ameliorate the situation.
First off,
there's been the ping pong match between the property
developer and the Laiguangying SARS prevention office in
which both sides tried to put the onus on the other side
to take action. In doing so, both parties have failed to
adhere to the national health ministry's rules which
mandate early detection, early reporting and early
management of any outbreak via implementation of
effective prevention measures. The outbreak at Beiyuan
Gardens started in April, but it wasn't until the end of
May that residents received formal notification of the
outbreak from the property developer.
Second,
the Beijing municipal health bureau and municipal CDC
never conceded that there was ever a public right to
know about the outbreak. The two offices believed that
as the outbreak had already been reported to the
relevant authorities, there had been no coverup. But as
for the true nature of the situation, officials did not
consider leaving Beiyuan Gardens' residents and property
owners in the dark to be a coverup. They simply did not
see any public right to know about what was really
happening there.
The attitude exhibited by the
Beijing municipal health bureau and municipal CDC did
nothing to put the minds of those at Beiyuan Gardens at
ease. The municipal health bureau admitted that there
indeed existed major insufficiencies in the disease
prevention and control efforts at Beiyuan Gardens, but
did nothing to deal with the relevant departments and
responsible individuals connected with the failure to
stem the outbreak. An obvious bias is apparent when one
compares the municipal offices' failure to deal with
those responsible for the needless spread of SARS in
Beiyuan Gardens with the central government's very
public sacking of the national health minister and the
mayor of Beijing on April 20 for a virtually identical
coverup.
At the same time, when the Beijing
municipal health bureau and municipal CDC chose to
refute the "rumors" it accused ATol of fabricating,
there still existed a major contradiction in the figures
for Beiyuan Gardens' outbreak which were being released
by the offices. This led people to have major doubts
about the figures being released by the government. The
Beijing municipal CDC's early figures stated that
Beiyuan Gardens had a total of seven confirmed and seven
suspected SARS infections - among which five were later
dropped. Two days after these figures were released, the
Beijing municipal health bureau released a report saying
that Beiyuan Gardens had seven confirmed and seven
suspected cases - of which all seven later were
reclassified as confirmed cases. The discrepancy in the
suspected case figures between these two offices that
should be working together and most certainly should not
be issuing contradictory information is one of the
reasons why observers outside China are still
questioning the accuracy of figures released by Beijing.
Accurate statistics are effectively impossible
to obtain, as all information channels related to
Beiyuan Gardens are now inaccessible. What is known is
that the municipal government has been working on
locating 138 residents of and visitors to Beiyuan
Gardens. It has tracked down over 50 of them so far. No
name list of those who remain at large has been printed.
In addition, the Beiyuan Gardens' Internet forum, which
was used to minimize interpersonal contact and maximize
the spread of information related to the outbreak among
residents, is now inaccessible due to "technical
problems".
(Copyright
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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