As China’s weather gets colder, cluster outbreaks of H1N1 are increasing. A Ministry of Health report from Nov. 16 sites 53,612 cases with 53 deaths. Mainlanders complain on blogs and radio talk shows that authorities are blocking news of school closures and not doing enough to prevent the spread of the virus.
Sound of Hope Radio recently aired a program regarding the H1N1 situation. Zhai, a student at the Hunan University of Arts and Science University—a school that was recently shut down due to an H1N1 outbreak—was interviewed.
Zhai: I did hear that there were students who were infected. However, in general, those who become ill are either sent to a hospital or quarantined in the dorm. If my school has taken some measures, I was not aware of anything special. Students who were infected probably did not understand what it was all about.
A listener from Anhui who asked to remain anonymous called in saying she was aware of outbreaks in the universities and middle schools there. “The H1N1 outbreak here is really bad. Some of our middle schools have closed down. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is covering up the H1N1 outbreak just the way it covered up the SARS outbreak. Everything is blocked. It hasn’t been reported on the TV news programs or the Internet blog sites. They aren’t doing anything about it while their actions could make an impact. H1N1 is spreading across the whole country, yet many people do not know about it at all,” she said.
Another caller, identified only as a faculty member at the Shanxi Huanghe Middle School also called in. “Many people have developed fever. Only the supervisors have access to the statistics. Several classes have been suspended, and this is done based on the number of confirmed cases within the class. If your class reaches a point where you have to suspend the class, you have to do so even if you don’t want to. If your class has not reached that point, you cannot do it even if you want to. There are 50 to 60 classes in the school and each has a different situation.”
Chinese bloggers recently reported an H1N1-related death in Wuhan, and Chinese bloggers have also reported H1N1 cases in Inner Mongolia. Xilinguole Vocational College closed down after 2 confirmed cases were reported. Close to 200 students developed fever in a middle school in E’erduosi District. Another case was reported in an elementary school.
A Mr. Wang from Zhijiang, Hubei Province stated that several middle and elementary schools in his local area have announced classes will close for a week, but the local media did not report it.
Another Mr. Wang from Baotao was interviewed: “It is more severe in Baotao,” he said. “It was reported that 80 percent of the flu cases belonged to the H1N1 category. However, those who died were people who developed complications or had a previous history of illness. The disease is not life threatening to people who are healthy,” according to Wang.
Read the original Chinese article.
