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Episcopal Church missionary describes mood in China as it faces health threat of SARS
2003-096-1
5/5/2003
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[Episcopal News Service]
The Rev. Elyn MacInnis, who serves an interdenominational English-speaking congregation in Beijing as an appointed missionary of the Episcopal Church, recently sent an e-mail describing the tension in China as it faces the threat of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
'The hospitals are bursting, and even a tour group of 20 Germans has been affected,' she wrote. 'They are all in Union Hospital where I used to teach English. One has died, and quite a few are now having fever, the first symptom. In one hospital the police surrounded the hospital and evacuated all the people inside because it was not an official SARS hospital, yet 60 of the doctors and nurses inside all had SARS. Our local hospital is now a SARS hospital.'
She reported that 'the supermarkets are almost empty, and the farmers don't want to come to the markets. We seem to have a few farmers with produce in our market, but my friend's vegetable market is basically shut. Try to find some disinfectant or bleach--there is none to be found. I bought the last 10 bottles of Chlorox from our local foreign market at the Lido Hotel for the members of the team with whom I film once a month, and they were so grateful. Their markets had nothing in them.'
She said that 'all schools are now shut, and the university campuses are also shut and quarantined for the next two weeks, including Beijing University and Qinghua University (China's MIT). The foreign schools have a pretty good system going, where anyone with a fever or cough (for any reason) is asked to stay home, and children are checked for fever before class. Everyone has to wash their hands many times in the day, and that seems to help a lot.'
MacInnis said that the foreign hospital near her apartment is not reporting any cases of SARS. 'Of course, no one really wants to go to the hospital, since if they don't really have SARS, then going to the hospital should give them ample chance to catch it. My Chinese teacher's husband is a doctor, and he is now living at the hospital and doesn't come home. The son has been sent off to live with Grandpa, since his school is shut and the Mom is away all day still.'
According to MacInnis, 'The foreign population is doing better than the local population, since many of them live in individual houses or places with better sanitation, although it is a bit rattling for those of us in apartment houses, since the drain pipes here are so terrible with no traps and the SARS virus comes up through the drain pipes. I disinfect our drainpipe openings twice a day. Most foreigners want to go home, no question about that, since if the local hospitals get overwhelmed by patients there will be no place to get proper medical treatment. I think that point may come soon.'
She reported that 'the train station and the airport were packed with people--all bailing out of Beijing. I just talked to one of our pianists who is married to a Beijinger, and she said her part of town is completely empty. They ate dinner in a McDonald's that had 14 people in it. The usual number of people is five or six times that. She felt comfortable since there were so few people there. The servers all had masks, and they sprayed the tables with a disinfectant after each group left. On the streets it is so quiet that she thought it was almost like her home town in England. '
She concluded her report with a question: 'How do I feel? I alternate between nervous, confident, and numb.'
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