Article

2005-10-23 China-Japan-Koreas

China will shut down borders if struck by bird flu

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Posted by Steve White 2005-10-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I suspect the actual Chinese statement was to the effect of "once H2H is proven (anywhere), then China will shut it borders." The reality of this is a lot more complex, of course.

First of all, China will be subdivided into biological control districts. Special emergency powers will have to be used concerning transient labor, which annually amounts to 350 million people, crossing half the country. It will be amazingly difficult to restrict this traffic flow.

Beijing, which is perpetually swamped with outsiders seeking work, will face having to deport millions of homeless people out of the city. If a full-blown epidemic strikes, most likely they will set up near-rural tent cities in semi-quarantine.

As was demonstrated during the SARS outbreak, many rural cities and towns erected barricades to all outsiders. This is both an effective technique for them, and acts as a "fire break" to the national outbreak, since sick people cannot travel more than a minimum.

Tent quarantine areas will also be used when travel must exist. Once the incubation period is established, a travel regime will take into account neccessary delays of several days or more.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-10-23 00:35|| 2005-10-23 00:35|| Front Page Top

#2 Ah...great. So I'll be trapped. Just where I want to be when the shit hits the fan...a shitty country with no medical care. Friend of mine broke 8 ribs and a collarbone in a wreck, hospital sent him home without so much as an aspirin. "We can't help you."

Hopefully there's some exception for foreigners going home. I don't care if I get quarantined for a year, I want to be somewhere with actual doctors.

Posted by gromky">gromky 2005-10-23 07:07|| http://communistposters.com/]">[http://communistposters.com/] 2005-10-23 07:07|| Front Page Top

#3 My sister goes to China periodically to train doctors. She might be able to put you in touch with those doctors, depending on where you are. I don't mean that would help with bird flu, but for things like your friend's injuries.

Posted by Kathy L">Kathy L 2005-10-23 07:35|| 2005-10-23 07:35|| Front Page Top

#4 When bird flu hits China, China will LIE about it and pretend nothing is wrong.

Posted by anon1 2005-10-23 12:00|| 2005-10-23 12:00|| Front Page Top

#5 Nah, I know a real American doctor, in a city 2 hours away by taxi. He'll come if I call him. He tells me bone-chilling stories from misdiagnosis to reliance on ineffective traditional medicine to plain bullheadedness when a doctor refuses to lose face by admitting that he was wrong, and the patient dies or is permanently crippled. I will never so much as let a Chinese doctor touch me, I don't care how "Western-trained" he is. God forbid I ever actually have to go to the hospital.

If China shuts down its borders due to flu, the damage will be huge. Every kind of retailer in the States will have empty shelves very quickly.

Posted by gromky">gromky 2005-10-23 12:04|| http://communistposters.com/]">[http://communistposters.com/] 2005-10-23 12:04|| Front Page Top

#6 That's a horrible scenario Gromky. What if I need a new 17' monitor? Will I be forced by nature to soldier on with this sorry thing I have? And socks? Who will make my socks? Will I have to start washing them? It'll be like 1977 all over again.

Posted by Rod Steiger 2005-10-23 13:24|| 2005-10-23 13:24|| Front Page Top

#7 "Who will make my socks? Will I have to start washing them?"

That way more personal information that we needed, RS. ;-p

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-10-23 14:10|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html] 2005-10-23 14:10|| Front Page Top

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