Beijing Shows Signs of SARS Recovery
By AUDRA ANG
BEIJING (AP) — Shut down during the SARS outbreak, China’s national library reopened Monday with its books newly sterilized in the latest sign that Beijing is slowly recovering after being nearly paralyzed by the illness in April and May.
At least 400 people were standing in a drizzle before the six-story National Library of China in Beijing’s northwest opened its doors at 9 a.m. and 1,800 people visited during the first hour, said Bai Xuehua, a library spokesman. He said 10,000 people were expected before day’s end.
“It was surprising how many people came,” he said, given that it was raining. “There are many restrictions in place but everyone is being patient.”
Readers were checked for fevers before entering and were encouraged to wear masks while inside. The library is regularly disinfecting public areas and using special lights to sterilize its 20 million books.
It closed April 24 amid anti-SARS measures that also shut down Beijing schools, cinemas, gymnasiums and other public facilities.
Beijing accounts for 184 of the Chinese mainland’s 340 reported deaths from severe acute respiratory syndrome. Daily reports of deaths and new cases have fallen into the single digits in recent weeks.
The reopening is another sign that the city – the worst hit by SARS in the world – is slowly recovering.
The Beijing Wild Animal Zoo, a privately owned wild animal park on the capital’s outskirts, reopened this weekend following a five-week shutdown prompted by SARS, said a spokeswoman for the park. She would give only her surname, Zhao.
The 630-acre park, which has about 20,000 animals, had 500 visitors on Saturday and 600 on Sunday – about the same as an average weekend last year, Zhao said.
Also Monday, the World Health Organization said Dr. David Heymann, the U.N. agency’s communicable diseases chief, will visit Beijing this week to meet with Health Ministry officials.
China had been criticized for its slow response to SARS. While the numbers have been falling, WHO has questioned whether officials are investigating thoroughly enough to record all of Beijing’s cases.
Chinese officials say they will keep many prevention measures in place to avoid the possibility of a new wave of infections.
State media say cinemas will reopen Tuesday with fever checks for customers and reduced numbers of tickets sold in order to avoid crowding. Discos, gyms and karaoke parlors are still closed.
The global death toll stood Monday at 783, out of more than 8,300 infections.
Taiwan reported four new cases Monday, and health officials in the island’s capital approved the resignation of Yangming Hospital President Wang Tai-long to accept responsibility for a new outbreak that surfaced there Friday.
The hospital has reported at least six SARS patients, and 13 others showing SARS symptoms.
The cases dealt a blow to authorities who thought they had stopped the illness from spreading at hospitals – the source of 90 percent of Taiwan’s infections.
The public hospital has quarantined 87 patients and hospital workers to contain the disease, which has infected a total 680 people islandwide and has killed 81.
Su Yi-jen, chief of the Center for Disease Control, said Yangming officials had failed to enforce strict SARS control measures and allowed scores of nursing aides who took care of elderly patients to wander around the hospital.
In Toronto, officials reported Sunday the deaths of 66-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man, increasing the number of dead in Canada’s largest city to 33.
The city controlled its initial wave of infections by May, and now a second outbreak of SARS that spread from one undiagnosed case in a hospital has been mostly brought under control, but officials have warned some patients in critical condition could die instead of recovering.
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