In just less than one month, atypical pneumonia has brought Beijing's sprawling People's Hospital to its knees.
Medical staff say at least 60 doctors and nurses have caught Sars in a makeshift fever ward. They say patients mingling in 'isolation' have been infecting each other.
Patients with ordinary ailments at the general hospital have been rushing to discharge themselves, scared off by the virus that haunts the halls.
Now no one is going anywhere.
The hospital, affiliated with the illustrious Peking University, was sealed off on Thursday, ringed in yellow police tape as the central government implemented a policy of quarantining any building where a confirmed or suspected Sars case has occurred.
Guards barricaded the gates of its old ivy-swathed courtyards and newer high-rise buildings.
People's Hospital was not among those designated to treat Sars patients.