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Bill Savadove

Residents suspect lies, while the experts say it may just be a case of good luck

The World Health Organisation speculates that Shanghai has simply been lucky in the battle against Sars.

City officials credit their own  prompt prevention work,  while many residents claim the local government is covering up the truth.

All are explanations for why Shanghai, sandwiched between two Sars hot spots, has such a low number of cases - only six up to yesterday.

Health experts say the answer is probably a combination of the three explanations.

For now, the city appears to be an isolated outpost in the middle of a mass outbreak. The virus originated to the south in Guangdong. To the north in Beijing, Sars cases have surged to more than 1,800.

Shanghai Health Bureau chief Liu Jun initially attributed the low number to the weather, but he later backed away from that claim. Wolfgang Preiser, a member of the WHO team that inspected Shanghai, offered another explanation: luck. 'There's no reason why there shouldn't be more Sars in Vancouver than Toronto, just based on probability, and yet there isn't. It is chance,' he said.

Vancouver is considered to have closer links to some of the places heavily affected by Sars. Dr Preiser said Shanghai appeared to have so far escaped the phenomenon of the 'super-spreader'. Dubbed 'big poison king' in Chinese, such a person can infect as many as 100 others.

This seems to defy the odds.  There are 15 flights a day between Guangzhou and Shanghai. Thousands enter the city every day by plane, train, bus and boat. Three million migrant workers toil in Shanghai, but the individuals change constantly.   Many of the city's 13 million residents travel for business and pleasure.

The WHO has said measures taken by Shanghai were better than those in Beijing and some provinces, even though the city did not have a prevention system in place until mid-March.

Publicly, Shanghai officials have gone from denial to heavy-handedness in their battle against the virus. A foreign resident tells of coming through the airport wearing a face mask before any steps against the disease were announced, and receiving a tongue-lashing from officials. Two weeks later, the same man received another warning at the airport, this time for not wearing a mask.

Some might label Shanghai's new measures draconian - some district governments have imposed quarantines on hotel guests from affected areas - but foreign diplomats said local officials must be credited for their efforts.

'We've been criticising the Chinese for so many weeks for doing nothing, at least now they are trying to do whatever they can and that should be highlighted,' a Western diplomat said.

A team from the State Council said Shanghai's measures had shown results, despite public disbelief and rumours to the contrary. 'We keep hearing about so many cases at one hospital and so many cases at another hospital,' a nurse at one major hospital said.

There are other reasons for the scepticism about  official figures. After the WHO warned  a significant increase could be expected in the number of Shanghai's suspected cases - because of a change in the national case definition - the official tally immediately fell.

In a closed-door meeting with WHO officials, foreign diplomats voiced suspicion over the high proportion of foreigners among suspected Sars cases, since they make up such a small percentage of the  population.

Shanghai has also lagged in classifying some cases. A French girl showing Sars symptoms after returning from an affected area, Beijing, was not listed as a suspected case for her first two days in hospital.

Between its first recorded case  and April 22, Shanghai registered a total of 34 suspected cases -  doctors ruled out the virus in most of them. The official count for suspected cases has never gone above 16 on a single day.

James Maguire, who led the WHO team in Shanghai, said the number of cases might  be closer to 10 instead of the official figure of two at the time.  Other WHO officials say the number of suspected cases could be in the tens, but nowhere near the hundreds seen in Beijing.

Some analysts said local officials were playing a dangerous game if they were deliberately trying to cover up the true numbers. 'That would be stupid considering what happened in Beijing,' an analyst at a foreign investment bank said. The health minister and Beijing mayor were sacked for their handling of the crisis.

Shanghai residents still have faith in their officials in the battle against Sars. They say the city has done a better job than the capital in controlling the virus.

Worker Liu Li said: 'We don't believe the government, but Shanghai is the most advanced city in China so we can control the virus.'



Shanghai's low Sars numbers defy the odds and raise suspicions