Daily Life - SARS Related II

This is the second flash of dialy life from Shanghai in the SARS times. This is a sunny, warm Saturday in early spring. I stayed at home the whole day today.

Fast Food Restraunts

KFC in Metro City of Xujiahui changed face from yesterday night. All staff - the counter, the cleaning staff, the cooking staff and managers wore large white facial masks. Whenever a customer leaves his/her seat, the cleaning staff will rush to the seat and spay disinfectant onto the table, then clean it. This does not enhance neverness at all. On the contary, I feel very relax and safe when I ordered by “Suite 1” (21.50 RMB). ll many people there, although not that crowded.It is easier to find a seat now. There were still two tables available when I got my plate - this is seldom seen for the rush hours.

Office building disinfected

A notice in the building I worked in was placed in the lobby. It announced the emergency phone number of SARS contact person of the property management company and put the schedule of disinfection.

Chat with a friend

A friend of my just called and let me know she just returned from a business trip to Beijing. Oh! I asked about the situation. She told me that the airport of Shanghai is checking every passenger carefully. She filled the form and went through the time consuming physicial examination. She will stay at home for some days before she go out.

Taxis and buses

According to Shanghai government’s official website, the city’s transportation administration announced the new transportation viechele disinfection regulartion.

Starting from April 26 (today), all the 18496 buses, 46000 taxis and 324 metro trains are required to stick “Disfinected” label before put into operation. This is another solid action to prevent the spreading of SARS via transportation system. It always help the public to descrease panic.

Daily infection is requierd, so they have design 7 color labels:

Monday brown Disinfected

Tuesday bluegreen Disinfected

Wednesday lilac Disinfected

Thuresday green Disinfected

Friday lightyellow Disinfected

Staturday lightgreen Disinfected

Sunday skyblue Disinfected

The sticker need to appear on the glass of the doors where passengers get aboard the buses. Taxis need to stick it at the right corner of the front glass. The sticker also will be seen on the window beside the doors.

All citizens are entitled to call the administrations if they find any car not follow the regulations. I also post the numbers here for your reference:

Buses 63175522

Taxi 63232150

**Metro lines: **64483666 63189000

**Other transportation **65956925

**Transportation information **962000

The area code of Shanghai is 21 and the country code of China is 86

Meanwhile, to prevent SARS from spreading, all cars must not use air conditionings and must open the window for enough fresh air circulation.

So no wonder Caroline commented at 4:11 PM:

Have you seen how the cabs in Shanghai are so shiny today?? Clean!!! Even the blue ones and the maroon ones are clean! The roads are swept so often! And of course spitting is now a 200rmb offense in Shanghai! Wow!

And what a beautiful day it is outside!

Posted by: Caroline on April 26, 2003 04:11 PM

Online shopping

After the government’s suggestion to stay home and avoid travel, many people are staying at home recently. The shopping malls are less crowded than before. On the contary, online shopping, which is warm but not hot this year, become extremely hot.

When I logged on to the one of the largest online (and offline) chain supermarket LianHua’s website, a notice pop up appeared (Chinese notice and will exist for only limited time. The link may be broken when you try). Here is the excerpt:

Impacted by SARS, customers tend to choose to shop online. This caused the order of this week increased by 120%. Some goods are out of stock. At the special time, solidarity is the first priority. We are trying our best to make sure your goods are delivered on time. Our staff will wear masks when delivering the goods to your door…..

I bought some rice, water and other neccessities from the website - it can be deliver to my home in 3 hours. It is very good, right?

WHO’s team in Shanghai

WHO held the press conference in Portan-RizCarlton Hotel at 17:30 yersterday after investigating Shanghai’s SARS situation for five days. We are longing for the result of the inspection.

According to the announcement, WHO think highly of Shanghai on SARS. I watched part of the press conference. It was on Shanghai TV this morning.

“We have not found the Shanghai government to have flaunted the numbers or covered up the outbreak,” said Keiji Fukuda, a member of the United Nations agency’s team. “Based on what we have seen, the case numbers reported are in the ballpark.”

The team attributed the small number of SARS cases in Shanghai to two factors: luck and the city’s deliberate precautions.

“SARS is not a worldwide epidemic yet and the incidence of the disease is quite different in different regions. Moreover, local health authorities have gained much experience and lessons from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Beijing to conduct effective measures such as avoiding hospital infection and establishing a strict monitoring system to identify SARS cases and suspected patients and to conduct separation measures,” said Keiji Fukuda.

Source: Eastday.com

Two cases in Shanghai

Lots of friends outside Shanghai asked me whether I believe in the number of 2 confirmed cases in Shanghai, while Beijing and Guangzhou have much more.

Well. I only happen to live in Shanghai and I don’t have any data to support the guess of either side. I can only judge based on my feeling and my observation of very limited part of the city.

I am convincined that the number of 2 cases are reasonable and very likely to be true. Here are some reasons why I believe in the official numbers the government announced. DISCLAIM: MY PERSONAL OPPION ONLY

• Shanghai is doing a good job to take precautions. As you can see from this article and from the previous obverservation, all the actions are taken promptly and orderly. Disinfections go on everywhere; education on the SARS knowledge can be seen whenever you go; Passengers visiting Shanghai are taken temperature and filling travel history forms; and all big events have been canncelled.

• Quarantine immediately and in the right scope was taken promptly. There are lots of rumors, most of them are confirmed to be rumors only. I’d like to give you an example here.

• On April 24, a suspected SARS case was found in the Shanghai Teachers University. It is within 10 minutes distance from my home. I heard the rumor first that someone was infected. I checked the website and found the university has put the announcement of the case on the homepage of the website. According to the notice, the student with last name Wang came back from Beijing on April 13 and shown the symptoms on April 23. The dorm of patient’s was quarantined immediately (the 3rd and 4th floor of the No. 6 dorm). People with contact with the patient was under observation too.

• In the next day, Miss Wang was announced to be free of SARS.

• On April 25, the quarantine for the dorm in Shanghai Teachers University is removed and all the students in the dorm became free again.

In this case, I believe the government, the disease control center and the university have done perfectly to reduce the protential risks of SARS. We can clearly see the relationship between the low case number and the servious attitude.

• The disease control network is better in Shanghai. I just remember about one year ago, I had a loose bowels and went to see a doctor of the No. 8 Hospital. The doctor was very alerted and asked me if there is anyone else in my company are having the same symptoms. He added that if he found more than 2 cases of the same disease, he are required to report the cases to Disease Control Center immediately. I felt very suprise at that time because I didn’t believe that only two cases will be reported - I thought it should be at least 5 or 10. This experience let me know Shanghai has a disease report and control system in place already.