Villagers block roads in bid to keep SARS at bay

As Beijing today prepared to open a hastily-built 1,000-bed SARS hospital, villages around China’s capital were blocking roads in hopes of keeping out the virus.

At a half-dozen farm villages visited by reporters on Beijing’s northern outskirts, barricades of dirt and stones lay across roads into the communities.

Signs told outsiders to stay away.

Residents were allowed to leave, but volunteer guards sprayed their vehicles with disinfectant when they returned.

It was not clear whether such barriers were considered a violation of an order by China’s central government this week banning local communities from blocking traffic from Beijing and other hard-hit areas.

One township official said his government had authorised the barriers.

At a cluster of farmhouses within sight of the new SARS hospital, set amid cornfields north of Beijing, a chest-high pile of dirt spread beyond the edges of the 6ft wide road into the community.

A hand-lettered sign in red on a scrap of plywood said, “SARS Prevention, No Entry”.

“We’ll stay here and keep this road block up until the threat of SARS passes,” said a 30-year-old farmer dressed in cloth shoes and a worn military-style jacket who was guarding the barricade with two neighbours.

The new hospital is part of massive efforts launched over the past two weeks to stop the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Beijing, where at least 75 people have died and 1,448 cases of infection have been reported.

The city has shut down schools, sending 1.7 million students home, and ordered cinemas and other entertainment sites to close.

Nationwide, the Health Ministry has reported 159 deaths and 3,460 infections.

Beijing Mayor Wang Qishan said yesterday that no SARScases have been reported in villages around Beijing.

But he warned of potential disaster if the virus spreads into poorer areas that lack the capital’s healthcare resources, and said rural households had been issued thermometers and told to check family members every day for fever – a key SARS symptom.

The rising toll of deaths and infections in Beijing sparked panic last week, with thousands of people fleeing the capital and others stocking up on food for fear the city of 13 million people might be sealed off.

Wang yesterday denied speculation that the government planned to impose martial law or close the city.

The government says the new Beijing hospital, next door to an ostrich farm near the suburban hot spring town of Xiaotangshan, was built in eight days by 7,000 labourers who worked around the clock.

Wang, appointed only last week after his predecessor was accused of mishandling the outbreak, said the first 195 patients were ready to move in.

Police in Beijing say they have checked drivers and passengers of thousands of vehicles arriving in the capital for SARS symptoms, but haven’t found anyone infected.

Elsewhere, reports that cities and towns were barring all vehicles from Beijing prompted the order on Tuesday by the central government banning such efforts.

It said they could jeopardise the movement of medical supplies.

Despite that order, an official of the Xiaotangshan township government said today that it had authorised local road blocks.

He was patrolling the area on a motorcycle and spoke as it was being sprayed with disinfectant at one makeshift barrier.

“Prevention comes first,” said the township official.

At the village of Houniugang, about one mile from the Xiaotangshan hospital, a wheelbarrow blocked the road and a stern-face man with a crew-cut and a red armband that said “Security Patrol” said no outsiders were allowed.

A roadside stand was set up to spray the vehicles of residents with disinfectant.