(Clearwisdom.net) For the most part, the SARS situation in China has been covered up. The Chinese government has
raised the alert level of SARS to "life and death." Recently, the Chinese government held
an internal teleconference and relayed one of Jiang Zemin's orders, namely: "If more SARS
infections and proliferations are reported, local government and party officials will be subject to
immediate dismissal." Moreover, the teleconference also relayed procedures on how the army
should be involved, on how to seal off local areas, and on how to promptly cremate bodies and impose
news blackouts in case of emergency. Caption of the above pictures: After the May issue of the Chinese magazine "Caijing"
(Chinese Economic Review--the most popular financial magazine in China) reported on the real
situation of SARS in China, the government banned the June 2003 issue from being published. The recent large-scale cleanup and censorship of "non-cooperating" media in China was
just part of this emergency policy. The latest issue of "Caijing" magazine was originally
published on June 20. A week later, however, the magazine was taken out of circulation by the
government. A doctor in Guangdong Province who asked not to be identified said, "There have never been
any firm numbers on SARS. Beijing has already distributed target quotas to all the locals and each
has their own quota. We all reported the findings based on the quotas assigned by the Central
Government. As everyone could readily see, the data figures quoted by Chinese government were evenly
matched." A Shenzhen Public Security Bureau policeman who was responsible for disposing the bodies of SARS
victims said, "Because of the strong infectious nature of SARS, the public security bureaus has
been directly responsible for the cremation of SARS victims." The policeman also said, "The maximum number of deaths in Shenzhen was set at no more than
30 by Beijing. In fact, the actual number of SARS related deaths in Shenzhen far exceeded the
officially reported number. There were a lot of deaths in Shenzhen, and the number was no less than
neighboring Hong Kong." According to a survey, many Shenzhen citizens did not believe the SARS situation that the
government reported. Most people in Shenzhen watched Hong Kong TV programs. They could see that Hong
Kong had free health care for all Hong Kong residents; its health care was far superior to Shenzhen.
Yet the figures published by the Shenzhen government were much lower than those in Hong Kong. Because of the ironclad orders for "Immediate Dismissal" by the central government, all
local government officials covered up the SARS epidemic and no government officials dared to report
on the actual SARS situation. Even worse was the fact that most local officials never had any
trustworthy statistics. Every level of the government gave orders to the level below to follow suit;
every official tried to eliminate SARS and figure out a way to cover it up. The most common approach
was to change the victim's death certificates. Ordinarily, all SARS induced deaths with other
symptoms were not recorded or classified as SARS. According to a Hong Kong based businessman who did
business with Hong Kong and China, there were cases of euthanasia in SARS related cases in Zhongshan,
Guangdong Province. According to a knowledgeable source, in order to prevent the spread of SARS,
hospitals administered euthanasia to patients diagnosed with SARS. Many provinces in China had their
own ways of dealing with SARS, but they did not communicate with each other, resulting in a broad
cover-up all over. Caption: During the SARS Forum held at a public library in Flushing, NY, an elderly audience
member asked Dr. Xu Jianchao of Yale University if cerebral hemorrhages were considered infectious.
This person said that his relative in Guangdong Province died during the period when Guangdong
Province was covering up SARS. The death certificate stated that the cause of death was a cerebral
hemorrhage, yet the hospital did not allow his family members to view the body, stating that the
body was "highly infectious." An infectious disease defense system official in Hubei Province said, "Historically
speaking, infectious diseases have always been a highly guarded secret in China. The Chinese
government's way of handling large-scale epidemics has always been to 'isolate and destroy.' In
other words, to use the army to seal off the infected area, and then let the patients die by
themselves. Patients who tried to escape would be apprehended as criminals." The Chinese
government recently announced that the most severe punishment for those SARS patients who did not
obey treatment, and who intended to infect others could be death. This was in fact just a
traditional approach for handling infectious patients. The World Health Organization announced on June 24, 2003 that they had removed Beijing from the
travel advisory lists. The day before, Hong Kong was also removed from the SARS infested areas. It
was learned that the World Health Organization's decision was intended to revitalize the tourist
industry in China and Hong Kong. A policeman from Guangdong Province said, "No one really knows what the actual SARS
situation in China is like. Each and every level of the government has been involved in the cover
up, and even the Central Government doesn't know." 2003-6-25
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/6/26/52864.html