Winds of Change.NET: China and SARS -- A Chernobyl Event?

China and SARS -- A Chernobyl Event?

by Trent Telenko at April 23, 2003 2:32 PM

The fall of the Soviet Union was speeded by two events that completely undermined the faith everyone had in the system. The first event was the Chernobyl nuclear melt down. The second was the botched relief effort for the Armenian earthquake. Together they revealed to everyone the shear corruption and sloth of the Soviet system.

SARS by itself is doing everything those two Soviet disasters did and more. That seems to be the sub-text to this Washington Post article.

Given that SARS lives for more than 24 hours outside the human body in snot, sweat, spit, urine and fecal matter, there are a number of things people haven�t considered about total Chinese SARS infections, airline industry liability, and the economic fallout they will cause.

Continued...

First, the Chinese doctor -- Dr. Liu Jianlun -- labeled as a 'superspreader' who infected people in Metropole hotel in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong spent, according to the Toronto Star, three days on a bus going through Guangdon province _WHILE INFECTIOUS_.

Three days on a bus in South China means:

1) There were at a minimum of 40 people on the bus at any one time; and

2) In those three days there were 120-160 people getting on and off the bus that were exposed to SARS while the doctor was a passenger;

3) That bus was contaminated, and was a site for further infection, after the doctor left it and

4) Any bus stop this doctor got out and used the facilities, sneezed, coughed, sweat on fabric covered furniture in the lounge, or had his body products get into air conditioning filters was contaminated.

We know this for a fact because it already happened in the Metropole hotel with other SARS victims. What we don't know how many Chinese Dr. Liu Jianlun infected on the way to Hong Kong because the Chinese authorities are hiding the disease spread rather then doing an investigative follow up on the disease exposure chain The plausible exposure numbers from that trip alone involved tens of thousands.

The Chinese SARS infection count is at least two and as many as three and a half ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE larger than officials numbers given to the World Health organization (WHO). I think there are at least 250,000 and perhaps as many as three million SARS cases in China. The vast majority being unreported. Again, from the Washington Post:

"And, perhaps more worrying for China, there have been reports that SARS has spread much farther into the interior than local governments concede. Local doctors have reported cases and fatalities in Yunnan and Liaoning provinces, for example, although provincial authorities deny any cases.

Gao said he was worried about SARS spreading into rural areas, where the medical system is deteriorating and farmers lack awareness of the disease.

"Once the disaster spreads to these areas," he said, "the consequences will be especially grave."

The Chinese are lying because they don't know how to tell the truth to outsiders or to themselves. Chinese don't report diseases to the Government for a reason. When the Chinese Communists took over in 1949, they �wiped out� V.D. in China. The Communists told those infected by V.D. to show up at clinics or face execution. When the infected showed up, they were executed.

So, whether Chinese had V.D. or not, there was 'officially' no more V.D. in China. While some types of V.D. would kill you eventually. Chinese V.D. victims going for treatment by Communist health providers would get killed immediately, so the infected suffered in hiding. Relying on black market medicine if they were wealthy and connected, or on herbal folk remedies if not.

This culture trait of lying about infectious illness is so well set that WHO will never be able to stamp out SARS in China. The Chinese government seems to have realized this and just took action against its national health minister and the mayor of Beijing. THEY ALSO JUST CANCELLED MAY DAY CELEBRATIONS BECAUSE OF SARS.

The implication for the airlines flying to or in China is grim because any SARS victim who is sneezing or coughing on a plane using re-circulated air will turn it into a concentrated SARS exposure tube. Every surface will be contaminated with recirculated SARS particles.

The same is true to a lesser extent with commuter trains, or modern buildings with central air conditioning, because it is cheaper to recirculate heated or cooled air rather than bring in more outside air that must be environmentally moderated for an additional power cost.

The only sure way -- AKA the bullet proof, American legal liability protection way -- to get every dark, damp or dirty nook and cranny on an airliner disease free is to take the interior of the plane apart, dump anything that has fabric as medical waste and put the remaining fixtures into a 15 minute high temperature steam bath. Replacing the seats, paneling and disinfecting the environmental control system of the plane is going to cost a mint. You would have large amounts of expensive in the West human labor involved.

American juries are not going to believe airlines that use foreign aircraft depots to do the work. Many of which are located in South East Asia.

It will be cheaper for air carriers operating in America to simply abandon Trans-Pacific-to-China air routes to non-U.S. operating air carriers rather than face the American Trial Lawyer Association. Or rather from facing their insurers exercising fiduciary responsibility to cancel air line policies, so as to avoid facing ATLA. If you have no insurance against normal business risks, you will not be allowed to operate in the USA by Federal regulators.

An FAA air directive requiring non-intercourse with China, refusal of service for recent visiters to China or bio-decontamination of planes for SARS may be put in place at American air carrier insistence. This would be both an attempt to reduce their legal liability and a move to assure the public that they can fly in safety on non-Chinese flights.

This outcome depends strongly on how badly the business class public is frightened into telecommuting instead of flying.

If the SARS scare affects the airlines that badly, you will also see the same problem with shipping containers from China. The simple fact is that any container could have been used by sick Chinese illegal immigrant stowaways via bribed Chinese and local port officials.

Sooner or later a de facto if not a de jure American quarantine of China is coming. China's agricultural sector is a breeding ground for new diseases. China's government hides the fact of new disease outbreaks from itself as well as the outside world. At least until these disease outbreaks are spread by the air transportation system to the rest of the world and the Chinese can no longer deny it.

The economic impact of this when the rest of the world acts to quarantine China (and not just for SARS) in self-defense is going to be immense. The Chinese economy lives of rapid exports to the West. Losing the ability to rapidly market its goods to its competitors because of medical security obstacles means China is no longer the lowest cost manufacturer in the world. The Asian "Tiger" economies will regain their edge on China. Places like Vietnam, which don't have China's "lie about disease" cultural meme, may in fact replace China as the world's low cost manufacturer.

As it loses its economic edge, China will also lose its clout in the USA as the American business "China Lobby" gets mugged by the economic reality of SARS and other Chinese diseases. No American business profit equals no political clout on Capitol Hill or in the White House.

The Communist Dynasty in China lives solely on it's reputation of delivering the economic goods. If it loses that. Just what does it have left in the way of legitimacy with the Chinese people? That is why SARS is China's "Chernobyl Event."

Update:

There is an op-ed piece in the LA Times today with a nearly identical title by James M. Goldgeier: Will SARS Be the Chinese Chernobyl?

From the article:

"Just as Chernobyl's effects were not felt until further opportunities to speak out and mobilize became available � thanks to the Soviet government's political and economic modernization program � the effect of SARS on the hold of the Chinese Communist Party may not be known immediately.

But any regime claiming a monopoly on truth can ill afford to raise questions in its society about its ability to provide for the health and well-being of the population.

To date, the Chinese Communist Party has avoided the Gorbachev approach of allowing greater freedom in society simultaneously with its economic modernization program. Because the economy has been growing, it has been easier to block demands for greater openness, and the party has been able to transfer power from one Communist leader to the next.

But evidence that the government cannot be trusted with the lives of its people may provide dissidents with the ammunition they need to raise questions.

In a few years, we may look back on SARS as China's Chernobyl."

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