Job Discussion Forums

[frognation]

Hello everyone,

I have been following the forum for a long time and have received a lot of good information and advice from it.

Currently, I am teaching at a high school and college in rural Anji County, about an hour outside of HangZhou. The town is small and the hospital a complete nightmare, sometimes I think I would be safer in a big city where at least there is adequate healthcare. My school, which houses about 3,000 students, appears to be taking the threat of SARS not very seriously, much like the community at large. There are now confirmed cases in Anji, as a man took a flight from HangZhou to Xiamen with a SARS carrier.

Here is my question: when is it time to pack it up and go home? The school has ordered all students to stay on campus, but this is a joke. Over 150 college students were signed out the first day and teachers returned to HangZhou for the weekend. Many many more students have climbed the walls to get out and go to the disco in town. I cannot blame the students for doing this because they have received very little information , if any at all, about what is really going on in our town.

The students live 8 to a room and spend 9 hours a day in the same classroom together. If one student or teacher were to get it, I am afraid it might spread very quickly.

Am I being over sensitive or should I get out while I still can? I have read all the posts about car accidents, viruses and hype and am not really interested in that type of information.

Please ignore the grammar and spelling, its early and I have not had coffee

Thanks so much,
froggy

[Hamish]

My advice?

The objective reality is that we don't have data to support moving to another place to be "more safe." Just moving around seems to increase the marginal risks.

It would be nice if we did have better information. We don't. It appears no one does.

Any international airport is near a city where there are, obviously, more people and greater possibilities for all kinds of bugs. Although you state that you already understand this, it bears repeating that your greatest risk comes from threats that have been around all your life and which will continue until one of them kills you.

I'm going to stay put.

Regards,

[taiwan boy]

I'm staying. While I think SARS is a problem I think the media induced mass hysteria is even worse. I don't feel particularly worried about SARS. I am just taking basic precautions like washing my hands and avoiding travel.

If people are thinking of leaving it is best to do it now. If the disease becomes worse then international flights could be cancelled and/or travellers from China could be placed into quarantine when they arrive in certain countries.

[earth_dog]

Froggy,

My situation here is a little different from most teachers who post to this board. I work for a college in Canada and have been sent here to work in China. I don't actually work directly for the college here in China. Late last week my Canadian college called and told me they want me to come home. I'm leaving on Thursday. I had a choice, but not much of one. The scales were tipped for me when I caught a cold, which normally I deal with myself, but at the insistance of the school here I went to the hospital to get checked out. I realized that if I did become ill here, that the quality of medical care I would receive would be inadequate, to put it politely. There were a host of things wrong in People's No. 1 Hopsital and I won't go into detail. There are officially no cases of SARS where I am, but when I pressed the doctors they admitted that maybe there were one or two.

Your post really speaks to a problem that no one here has addressed yet. And that is, if you do get sick, where are you going to go? And yes, I realize that as things stand now statistically you are more likely to "get hit by a turnip truck" but really if you choose to stay I think this is something that should be considered. Students and migrant workers are still leaving Beijing, 1,000,000 of them left in the past week according to one news item I read. I will not believe that none of them were infected. SARS will spread to outlying areas, it's the nature of a virus, it's just how badly will your partuicular locale be hit. Unfortunately there's no good way of knowing.

I'm not trying to justify my leaving, I'm comfortable with the decision, although I must admit I do dread dealing with the airport. I don't know if this helps you but it's what's happening in my life now.

[chinasyndrome]

I'm staying. So are the other 10 foreigners who work here with me.
Where is the 'burn point' for you? That's the point where you personally think the risk outweighs the reward. I completely agree with Hamish (Jim Bishop), who has been a consistent voice of sensible advice and reason.

While some places currently have a higher rate of infection, no one has a crystal ball, so we can't assume that anywhere else is 'safer' in the long run. A month ago the torch was on Guangdong, now the focus seems to be shifting to Beijing.

In my small city the risk seems to be minimal but who knows where we'll be next week? I could be sitting in the middle of the next hot zone.

Good luck to all.

[kathleen]

I'm sitting on the fence. Here in Nanjing there are no reported cases, nevertheless the Hopkins Center closed abrubtly last week as a precaution and today another friend informed me that all foreign teachers at Hehai daxue were leaving by the 6th.

I agree that one increases one's risk of getting sick by traveling, and, thus canceled my trip this week, but I am now nervous about not being able to get out in mid-June. And how does one make plans for next year??

I appreciate all the info and support I am getting from these forums.

I wish you all stay well.

Kathleen

[gmat]

I am in Dalian with no plans to leave. Few reported cases. However, today we heard of a quarantine (100 students) at a neighboring university. !

There are 18 foreign teachers here. One has his flight out on Wednesday. Three others are making plans to depart. Seems like an overreaction, but it is a very personal decision and I wish everyone in China good luck.

[frognation]

thanks everyone for the input.

I am still undecided. My main concern would be getting out in June as well. I am not so much afraid of catching SARS as I am of being able to leave.

I am curious to know if many teachers are staying because of the contract and return airfare or because they are really not worried.

Thanks again for the info.

Stay healthy,

froggy

[Anne-Marie Gregory]

Slightly OT, but does anyone know where to find the daily SARS update broken down by province. Xinhaunet did do this until Saturday but now I can't find them.....

[gmat]

Try this site for People's Daily Online http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/

They usually provide a breakdown from the previous day. Please note that 'suspected' cases seems to be a method used to downplay the headline numbers. For example, Beijing has 1191 'suspected cases' not included in the headline number of 1114.

From Sunday, all major Beijing-based media will publish the number of SARS cases in every district and county of the previous day and the information on the latest quarantine areas as well as the number of quarantined people, Beijing health authorities said.

The following is a breakdown of figures:

I. Total

Areas Cases Discharged Deaths (medical workers) Patients

Beijing 1,114(187) 78 56

Tianjin 22(10) 0 2

Hebei 27(6) 0 0

Shanxi 214 [ 48 ] 19 9

Inner Mongolia 76(13) 0 6

Liaoning 1 0 0

Jilin 7(2) 0 0

Shanghai 2 0 0

Zhejiang 3 0 0

Anhui 4 0 0

Fujian 3 1 0

Shandong 1 0 0

Henan 10(1) 0 0

Hubei 2(1) 0 0

Hunan 6 5 1

Guangdong 1,382(342) 1,185 51

Guangxi 16 8 3

Sichuan 12 3 2

Shaanxi 5 0 0

Gansu 2 0 0

Ningxia 5 0 1

Total 2,914(588) 1,299 131

II. Newly reported cases (10:00 a.m. April 26 to 10:00 a.m. April 27)

Areas New cases Newly Discharged New Deaths

Patients

Beijing 126 * 2 8

Hebei 6 0 0

Shanxi 19 5 1

Inner Mongolia 2 0 0

Anhui 3 0 0

Guangdong 3 7 0

Sichuan 2 0 0

Total 161 14 9

III. Suspected cases (by 10:00 a.m., April 27)

Areas Suspected Cases

Beijing 1,191

Tianjin 55

Hebei 45

Shanxi 156

Inner Mongolia 162

Liaoning 2

Jilin 3

Heilongjiang 1

Shanghai 12

Jiangsu 3

Zhejiang 6

Anhui 1

Jiangxi 2

Shandong 1

Henan 7

Hubei 13

Hunan 2

Guangdong 202

Guangxi 5

Chongqing 3

Sichuan 17

Shaanxi 25

Gansu 2

Ningxia 3

Xinjiang 2

Total 1,921

*: Of the 126 newly reported SARS cases in Beijing, 76 were newly diagnosed while 50 were suspected-turned-diagnosed cases.

edit: tried to fix format problems with numbers for Shanxi 214 (4 19 9

[hubei_canuk]

Anne-Marie:
Here is a good HK site for HK.
..
I HK site i trust
Can't believe China provincial Governments at all.. however the situation may not be too bad.
I also uso to use Xinhua but now can't seem to find stats there.

HK SARS stats updated daily.
http://www.info.gov.hk/dh/diseases/ap/eng/infected.htm

......
PS. I'm not going anywhere.
Life is good here. As well as the threat of SARs they are going insane everywhere. I can't go to Taiwan without quarantine, i can't go home to Canada without trouble.
If they try to throw me in a dungeon or the street people start keeling over i might change my mind but that seems far away for now.