Open Magazine Publishes Inside Story on SARS in China - "Covering up the Epidemic".

Open Magazine published a Chinese language article in its May issue entitled, "Covering up the Epidemic". The author is a medical staff member in Beijing with inside information. The author pointed out, according to the Chinese epidemic regulations, any kind of suspected epidemic must be reported to higher authorities within 6 to 12 hours. However, the Chinese government withheld information about the SARS outbreak for as long as 6 months. This is not the first instance of this kind of behavior. It has become a common occurrence for the Chinese government to conceal an epidemic.

The article said, this time, SARS spread in metropolises, which made it hard for the government to fool the common people. But most epidemics spread in China's rural area, especially those impoverished areas. For example, countrymen who live in the villages inflected with AIDS can do nothing but be manipulated by the government.
The spread of SARS and reactions from all levels of the Chinese government showed that most Chinese government officials are not truly concerned about the people. They don't hesitate to sacrifice people's lives to meet their own career goals and to further their "political achievements." A health official from a county in Henan Province was even brazen enough to say the following words when he mentioned the Henan AIDS village, "When all of these people die, the problem will be solved."
There is no press freedom in China. The epidemic is just like corruption, sealed up in a black box. In China, many of those who speak as experts are not real experts. True experts have been excluded through different excuses because they persist in upholding the truth.

This Is Not the First Time That Chinese Government Concealed an Epidemic

The article in Open Magazine said this was not the first time that the Chinese government concealed information of an epidemic and missed the chance to control the spread of the virus. A few years ago, when the first group of AIDS cases due to blood-transfusion were found in Henan Province, to secure Beijing's "stability" during the People's Congress, information was kept from the public. The information withholding lasted for a few years, which caused AIDS cases to spread to many provinces in mid-China and a number of "AIDS villages" appeared. WHO estimated that over one million people in China were infected with AIDS.

In fact, it is quite common that epidemics spread in local areas are not reported. It is well known in the Chinese Health Department that the number of cases for a certain epidemic is allotted for an area: the Chinese Health Department has a pointer towards the control of a certain disease. For example, the incidence of disease can not exceed 20 out of 100 thousand. For an area with only 100 thousand people, no more than 20 cases can be reported. The excess cases have to be "disappeared" and would not be reflected in official epidemic reports.

The Open Magazine article further pointed out, from the current crisis, we can learn some lessons. First, China's statistical data is unreliable. The number of confirmed SARS cases or the supposed eight percent economic growth rate are not credible. Secondly, the Chinese bureaucracy usually is unable to deal with a sudden outbreak crisis. Thirdly, according to the Party's traditions, a problem can only be talked about after it is announced to have been solved.