Malcolm Butler

SARS Heads North Malcolm Butler

When, in the winter of 2002-2003, a new disease emerged in the south of China and started killing people in Hong Kong, Canada and elsewhere, no-one knew how to react. The Chinese impulse was coverup. Those in China knew of the dire situations elsewhere, but not how bad the situation was in Mainland China itself. That was until the truth was exposed by military doctor Major General Jiang Yanyong. In one day, Beijing's official SARS count jumped from 37 to over 300. Beijing became a city of fear, and China became a country gripped by the crisis. This is the recollection of a young British teacher who was in Beijing at the time. He escaped China's capital and returned to his university in the north-eastern city of Shenyang where he found himself in quarantine and under suspicion of bringing the deadly disease with him.