The report on the SARS outbreak in China presents Christians around the world with the serious challenge of prayer on behalf of friends in Hong Kong, both Americans and Chinese. This report is taken from the China Reform Monitor, April 11, 2003.

The Chinese Government’s rigid control of information and its strict bureaucracy hindered efforts to identify and counter the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome [SARS] outbreak, reports the Far Eastern Economic Review. Since the virus first began to shake public confidence in early January, Chinese authorities have consistently played down the numbers of people infected.

SARS seems to have first appeared in Guangdong province in November 2002.  Authorities quickly clamped down on reporting by the domestic media after nervous residents in southern cities began to stockpile medical supplies. Guangdong authorities remained silent about the illness until a press conference on February 11 where they revealed the scope of the outbreak, reporting 305 recorded cases and five deaths from an atypical pneumonia; they also said the outbreak was under control.

On March 26, 2003, Beijing authorities finally admitted that there were SARS cases in city hospitals. But, under orders from the city's propaganda authorities, the capital's stable of papers all ran the same brief story on their inside pages under the same reassuring headline: "Imported atypical pneumonia in our city has been effectively controlled."

The Washington Post reports, the outbreak is posing an early challenge for China's new government’s promises to be more attuned to the people's needs. Chinese officials have exhibited few regrets about the way they have dealt with the outbreak. In a meeting with senior editors early last week, Lei Yulan, a deputy governor in Guangdong, stated, "You can see how much trouble the Hong Kong government created for itself after it made everything public… They didn't have the ability to control and handle the disease, so what good was it to make everything public?”

April 7:

The direct economic impact of SARS on China appears concentrated on hotels, airlines and other travel-related businesses that suffered as foreign and Chinese tourists cancelled trips, reports the Associated Press. The crisis could trim up to 1 percentage point off China's economic growth this year. Beijing’s projected growth of about 7% for this year is just barely enough, some experts say, to create jobs and stave off unrest among masses of people thrown out of work by economic reforms. Hong Kong retailers say the outbreak has cut business in half.

April 9:

While China’s investment and trade growth is expected to continue increasing, few economists believe the nation will emerge unscathed from the outbreak of SARS, reports the Wall Street Journal. Consumer demand, already fragile because of the war in Iraq, could weaken further as the economies of key overseas markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore suffer and foreign travelers trim their spending in China. Guangdong province, recipient of more than a fifth of China's total foreign investments, accounts for almost half of SARS deaths worldwide. SARS has also caused the delay of mundane factory repairs and the postponement of major conferences.