Death term for spreading SARS

CATCHING SARS might not be a death sentence but spreading it in China could be under extreme new rules enforced this week.

CATCHING SARS might not be a death sentence but spreading it in China could be under extreme new rules enforced this week.People who cause death or serious injury by deliberately spreading the killer respiratory virus could face the death penalty, or at least 10 years in prison, the Chinese Supreme People’s Court said.Despite a seeming slowdown in infections – Thursday’s figure of 52 new cases was the lowest in three weeks – China’s war against SARS shows no signs of abating.In southern Guangzhou city, 2000 wardens were sent to the streets to nab spitters, who faced a 50-renminbi ($9) fine. Local press said they netted 1300 people in the first 24 hours.China also stopped issuing permits for the adoption of Chinese babies by foreigners. The China Centre for Adoption Affairs said that because of SARS, the issue of permits would be suspended “to avoid cross-infection that might be caused by the flow of people”.More than 5000 Chinese babies, most of them from orphanages, were adopted to the US alone last year.The onset of warm weather usually sees a deluge of would-be parents into China’s international hotels.But this year, they have postponed their trips for fear of catching SARS.Forecasts for China’s economy are increasingly gloomy, with one diplomat who did not want to be named yesterday predicting less-than-zero “growth” for the year. But not all business is suffering in the epidemic. Telcos are reporting big gains in online shopping, mobile phone messaging and internet network games.Hotels, shops and restaurants may be empty, but parks are full as residents heed the Government’s call to ward off SARS through exercise. Badminton and bike riding are booming, and kite flying is suddenly a popular pastime. Beijing’s only drive-in cinema, the four-year-old Maple Garden Motor Cinema, has been screening four movies a night and turning them away at the gates. Business has never been better, up at least 30 per cent, says general Wang Qishun.An Liu gave up selling groceries and set up a stall at the Sun He kite market on May 3 as he watched the Beijing sky fill with fluttering dragons, birds, fish and butterflies over the truncated national holiday.Now he’s raking in about 5000 renminbi daily. At that rate, he makes as much in four days as the average Beijing worker makes in a year.He knows it can’t last, but hopes the market will settle at a new height: “Say, halfway between where it is now and where it was before SARS.”At the start of the SARS panic in Beijing last month, the city’s biggest bike shop at Qianmen in central Beijing sold 70 or 80 bicycles a day, double the usual number, to people spooked at the thought of crowded buses and trains.Car sales, too, are surging, although it’s hard to say whether it’s a SARS factor or a normal spring urge to splurge on wheels. A car salesman at the Asian Games Village told The China Business Herald that the daily sales record before SARS was seven in a day.Now it was 16. (Source: The Australian, Catherine Armitage, May 17, 2003)