cce blog

More on Erin in Beidaihe

It turns out the reason that no one is allowed into Erin's seaside resort town of Beidaihe is because China's political leaders are coming to town to relax and escape the crisis in Beijing. Beidaihe is a popular retreat for China's leaders and is known as the "summer capitol."

Erin says the policy seems to be that if you leave town, you can't come back in, though enforcement has been spotty. But she's stuck! Unable to have visitors on campus, leave, or congregate in groups larger than 20. Read more for her update ... it's REALLY worth the read.

[Note: QHD stands for Qinhuangdao and BHD stands for Beidaihe. The following was all written by Erin.]

SARS update

Before I relay my adventures in March, here’s the update on SARS, from my vantagepoint. (I’ve been getting a lot of concerned emails, which is understandable, and anyone who had originally promised to come visit is off the hook, since I can’t say I’d be flying to China right now.) First of all, SARS isn’t necessarily new here. I started hearing about this disease down in Guangdong right after Spring Festival, because I planned to go visit a friend in Guangzhou and my students were freaking out, and telling me that the PLAGUE was there. Obviously that wasn’t the case, or a large part of China would have died, but in order to get information, I did have to have a friend email me information from the US. At this same time, most of my access to American news was cut off-no NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times…the list goes on. We assumed the upcoming political conference was responsible, but for almost two months, my internet access was severely restricted. As of February, a new flu, or atypical pneumonia had infected about 400 people in Guangdong, but it was “under control.” When I was there March 2-4, people seemed fine. No one was wearing masks, and there was definitely no sense of panic. However, I did receive an email from the US Embassy warning me to avoid travel to that area around that time because of a mystery respiratory illness. By the time I was in Shanghai, I think is when things started getting a bit hairy in Hong Kong, and more information was coming out. My parents came over, and throughout our travels, up until April 2, the sense of panic wasn’t evident, although you could avoid travelers from Taiwan and other countries based upon the fact that they were the only ones wearing masks in Beijing at that point. The number of emails coming from the Embassy spiked as well, as the severity of things in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Canada escalated. By the time my parents flew back on April 2, they were greeted by people with gloves, masks, and they had to be checked in order to re-enter. I’ve heard things have gotten steadily more severe with visas being denied, talk of further airline restrictions and possible quarantines. If I get quarantined upon coming back, the good part is that it’s a week or two where I don’t have to worry about paying for rent or food. I just wonder where I’ll be put.

I am currently not wearing a mask, in fact, very few people in the Qinhuangdao area are. (Update: I saw some today but definitely still not many.) Those that are aren’t even wearing the proper kind for the most part, but rather wearing cloth ones that work for warmth or dust, but definitely not any coronavirus particles, even if they’re floating around in suspension. If you look at the numbers, they’re not that scary-800 to 1000 in Beijing out of 12 million. Statistically, that’s not that bad. Granted, as one reported asked in the news conference when they sacked the Beijing leaders, “they’ve lied to us all along, so how do we know they’re telling the truth now?” That ended the conference by the way. In reality, I never believed the numbers since it didn’t’ make sense, and the whole reluctance to allow WHO people in seemed to indicate the public story wasn’t likely. Since I was traveling, and the news was monopolized by the Iraq conflict, SARS had an opportune time to spread out of control. The frequent updates from the US Embassy gave me more information that the general Chinese public, and when I was in Beijing with my friend Sarah on April 3, her friends were calling and warning her with rumors and stories they’d heard. Offices started being sent home and people started taking all sorts of herbs that “cure or prevent” SARS. When I got back to work, there was some concern about the students from the south, but the school wasn’t originally planning to do anything until Jila and I said they should do a screening. In the past 2 weeks, reports of between 1 and 20 cases in my city have started spreading, but there’s not much panic yet. I haven’t seen any numbers for Hebei yet but that doesn’t mean a whole lot. (I’ve seen contradictory numbers here between the WHO and Chinese reports, but still have’t heard a lot).

Moving to the present. I’m sure you all heard about the Beijing sackings. I don’t give that much credence, since my understanding is that the Beijing leaders don’t call the shots. I’m pretty sure it was a whole act to avoid loss-of-face, and someone needed to take the fallout. Enough political heat from outraged trading partners, and even here they’ll finally face the truth. Unfortunately, the stories being told are neither as entertaining as the Iraqi Minister of Information’s versions of the war were, nor are they as benign. One of the WTO quotes came as close to sharing my sentiment as I’ve heard, when they said that had China spoken up in November or even January, perhaps much of this could really have been contained. Nothing is really certain yet, and I haven’t changed much of my usual habits, but my planned trip to Qingdao for my 5 day May 1 vacation is questionable at this point. The government cancelled the national holiday, but we still have 5 days off. Qingdao is thus far safe, but taking trains may be risky. I could possibly travel by ferry, which would have fewer people, and if I brought a blanket, I could camp out outside the whole journey and stay away from people. More likely, I’ll take all of the advice I’ve been getting and stay put here. Most of the other expats I know in my city aren’t too paranoid, but it seems that the situation in the US seems different. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about it, and the concerns run from my safety, to the possibility of my getting stuck over here, either because I won’t be allowed back to the States, or all airlines will stop providing services. At this point, that seems a bit extreme, but I’m monitoring the situation. Ever an optimist, I’m hoping it clears by July so I can travel as planned. At this point, it looks like I’ll be coming home a month early because I may be banned from any of the SE Asia countries that I really want to visit. Oy.

SARS addendum- why I live in the safest city in China. (take one guess… Hu’s my neighbor)

Crazy paranoia has reached here. My travel plans for Qingdao are irrelevant since I’m essentially reverse quarantined to the QHD county. The education commission, or some government agency, decided that all universities needed to reduce Labor Day vacation to one day. First we were told that we had to stay in the area, or if we left, could only return with documentation showing us to be SARS-free. That grounded me, since visiting any Chinese hospitals isn’t high on the list of desirable activities right now. However, now they’ve decided we should just have class. The up side is that I finish July 3 now, and can leave a few days earlier. Besides that, they have restricted campuses. I cannot have visitors here, and I cannot get into my friends’ campuses. The only way to meet anywhere is to go to public areas. They’ve begun spraying some sort of chemicals everywhere numerous times a day, encouraging 18-layered mask use if we go out, and taking cabs rather than buses. You can imagine how much I’m enjoying being stuck here and told what to do and who I can or cannot do it with.. this is all making the departure that more appealing I guess at this point. The students are getting uptight. Today there was a lot of noise outside, so I closed the window. Two started freaking out that I’d increased the SARS risk because I was decreasing ventilation. First off, there is only 1 reported case in my area (if we’re to believe the numbers I’m being fed at this point after the whole political debacle) and it’s not in BDH, but rather involved one person in QHD who had been in a BJ hospital. 1/600,000 isn’t that scary. However, in an act of complete incompetence mirroring the fiasco in Toronto, this man somehow disappeared. Apparently they have no idea where he went. Maybe he’ll appear in the midst of class. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make light of the current situation, but I’m trying to remain sane about the whole thing. And yes, I am incredibly irritated that it’s gotten so out of control or whatever. If I do get sick, can I sue the Chinese government? They’re somewhat responsible since they intentionally lied thereby increasing my risk. Could I draw a really far-fetched parallel to a situation in which a sexual partner knowingly denied he was HIV positive and then put someone at risk? That individual would be legally responsible, so by not telling people about an epidemic and acting upon it to quell the spread, could I interpret the government here to be at fault? Probably not at all.. alas. I wouldn’t be surprised if an American tried it if we did have a fatality.

There’s always more, right? Apparently I’m not even supposed to go downtown to QHD anymore. I got called into my boss’ office this afternoon and told this whole story about keeping me safe and whatnot (safe from what, a 0% or 1% risk factor?) and therefore I shouldn’t even go downtown. You’re supposed to only be able to come to the school area from the downtown area with a specific certificate, but I can’t get one. I’ll admit I wasn’t particulary accepting of this information, but I’m tired of getting a condescending and bullshit response if I ask a completely valid question. Jila and I think they just don’t know how to handle us, because we’re not going to get scared and stay inside because MAYBE 1 person in the entire area was infected. I told him that I was going out because I was already on my way, and this new decree made no sense. I’m already taking some government-prescribed herbal concoction which tastes more bitter than any malaria pills I’ve had, and I don’t even know what it contains. Anyone want a sample to analyze? I’ll get an extra and carry it home. Oh, and in the name of SARS, they’ve closed all internet bars. Only internet bars. Isnt’ than an ingenious way to keep people from accessing real information? Restaurants, bars, and stores where even more people congregate aren’t a threat apparently- just internet bars. I’ve heard via the Korean Embassy circuit (and this may very well be a rumor) that one hospital alone in BJ has had 150 deaths, which is higher than the currently reported national total. Teachers at Beiwai in BJ are getting even less information than I am and it seems the diplomatic circle can’t even agree since some countries are advising everyone pull out, while others aren’t.

Here’s the explanation though. Despite the fact that the government cancelled the Labor Day holiday for everyone in the country, the leaders are still going to take some time to relax. I wouldn’t want them to tax themselves now that they seem to have a crisis, after a political disaster, on their hands. But, to make sure that they stay safe during this vacation, no one is allowed to enter Beidaihe. Police are allegedly monitoring the highways and turning back all cars and buses, and I don’t know how the trains are being monitored, but I might go down to the station just to see who’s arriving. This does, however, explain why everyone’s acting so fucked-up about things and we keep getting these “government orders” with further restrictions when they seem completely unnecessary. So family be reassured: I currently live in the safest community in China, if not Asia.

If I’ve observed anything from this, it’s how NOT to run a public health campaign. Restrict information, don’t tell people accurate statistics and preventative measures so that paranoia breaks out and destroys the local economy while destroying government credibility and creating many angry people. Currently signs are being put up everywhere that read “Beware of SARS.” That’s helpful right? For a country that has an incredibly low general-health standard, this isn’t the way to run things. But if you look at it the way they’ve historically handled HIV/AIDS, I think you’ll see a pattern.

Posted by cce at April 27, 2003 10:07 PM | TrackBack