93373427
Two of my friends are travellin gin Tibet and were planning on coming to China in May. This is the advice I gave them-
“Are you guys still planning on coming? I’m going to leave on May 13, so I might not be here when you start to travel. My parents are really worried and I want to go home before they start any stringent travel restrictions.
I would suggest that you two get out of China. Not so much because of the risk of catching SARS, (though it is a nasty, nasty virus), but because of difficulties in traveling in China right now. They’ve already started putting up roadblocks around my city where they are checking peoples tempatures and I here beijing is even worse.
The last thing you want to have happen is to be picked up at a chinese roadblock for having a cold and then be sent to a SARS infected hospital.
I think there is a also a possibility that the US might start restricting flights from China. At the least you will probably be medically screened and face a potential quarintine.
I think you guys should go somewhere else. I heard they sealed off the border with nepal, but maybe you could still get into india. Maybe you could go to japan or korea. Afgahnistan isn’t so far away. Maybe that it is safer than china…
I will be leaving around the 13. but plann on traveling a little on the 9-12. So if you are in China then we can meet up at qingdao or Shanghai.
Alf”
-Some more thoughts-
-Travelling is not a good idea right now, but if you are living here it proably won’t be that bad, just boring. You will have to stay at home and lots of places will be closed down. You will probably also have to deal with more bullshit checkpoints and lockdowns.
- Though people here are takin SARS seriously, there are still some serious miconceptions that the goverment is helping to spread. The most serious of these is that SARS will be gone in two weeks. I hear this every day, “just wait two weeks and it will all be normal.” All of the stores and schools that have closed down are planning on opening up again in 2 weeks.
Part of this is because of chinese medical knowledge that states that when it get’s warmer out it is harder to spread the flu. This is partly true, but for one thing it’s not guarenteed to be warmer in two weeks, (it’s already pretty warm) and the f’ing virus started in Guangdong, the hottest province in China!
But I think the real reason people are saying that it will all be ok in 2 weeks is because that is the line the officials are pushing. They want the people to think that they have the situation under control, by telling them an official timeline.
Of course it is not going to be better in two weeks. It will probably be much worse. By misleading the people, the goverment is playing a dangerous game.
- The mutation theme seems to be really big in the media right now. I don’t think the SARS virus is mutating in a way that is making it more virulent. If any thing mutations will lead toward a less virulent diesease.