The overall toll of the virus has continued to rise. Chinese officials reported 2 new cases of bird flu infection in Shanghai and one in rural Anhui province, bringing the total number of infections to 21. Six people have died from H7N9 thus far.. Many in China have criticized the government for delaying the release of information about H7N9, as the first two infections dated to early February. On Sina Weibo, China's vibrant microblogging platform, netizens debated why officials had waited 20 days to reveal a bird-flu fatality.. "Shanghai only informed the public that a patient had died of H7N9 20 days after it happened, saying that detection takes time" wrote Godfrey Go. "I hope this is the real truth, and that we have learned the lessons of SARS".. Yet some experts praised Beijing's relative openness and transparency about the disease, particularly compared to the widespread stonewalling that occurred during the SARS epidemic, which killed nearly 800 people a decade ago.. But in some quarters, the response to the health emergency has been less than level-headed. Hotheaded People's Liberation Army Col. Dai Xu accused the United States of conspiring to trick China into worry excessively about bird flu, and deploying so-called "bio-psychological weapons" against China — just as it had done, he said, during SARS.. "All of China fell into turmoil and that was exactly what the US wanted," he wrote on Weibo, as translated by South China Morning Post. "Now, the US is using the same old trick".. The bird-flu crisis presents a challenge and an opportunity for the administration of Xi Jinping to make good on his vow to increase government transparency and accountability to the people.. Meanwhile, just weeks after over 16,000 putrefying pigs were pulled from Shanghai's Huangpu river, more than 250kg of dead carp had to be retrieved from a river in the city's Songjiang district. Mystery still surrounds the cause of death, but numerous explanations have surfaced in the Chinese media since residents first complained about the foul-smelling fish last Monday. Theories reportedly include climate change, electrocution, an explosion or even a drug overdose. The Shanghai Daily quoted a local government official who "speculated" the fish could have been "drugged." So, in China things are so good, even the fish are ODing on sleeping pills? China has become notorious for its polluted rivers, largely as a result of decades of unbridled economic growth. Last year a senior official conceded 20 percent of the country's rivers had become "too toxic for human contact".. Shanghai authorities have so far denied the "fish kill" was caused by water pollution, citing the absence of chemical plants near the river. Whatever the cause, authorities insist there is no risk to public health or drinking water sources.. "The river's quality hasn't been affected by the dead fish so far. It remains the same level as usual," an official named as Mr Zhang told the China Daily. He did not explain what the usual level was.. Nor was there a connection between the dead carp and the thousands of rotting pig carcasses pulled from Shanghai's Huangpu last month, local environmental official Liu Fengqiang said.. One river-dweller told the China Daily he had stopped using tap water in the wake of the two scandals. "I need to trust my sources of water. I'm still haunted by the dead pigs," Shi Hua said.. The samples of the dead fish have been sent for testing and the fish themselves have been laid to rest. All the dead fish plucked out of the water were "supposedly" buried safely, the Shanghai Daily reported.. But as Beijing commentator Bill Bishop said, the public's lack of confidence in the Communist Party makes it extremely difficult for officials to count on people's trust.. "The government is in a difficult position. Few believe it will be transparent, and if it is then many will assume the situation must be even worse than it is. How do you manage pandemic fears in the social media age, especially when your track record of information management has led to a credibility crisis"??
CHINESE DEAD PIGS, DEAD CHICKEN AND DEAD FISH!(HD)
The overall toll of the virus has continued to rise. Chinese officials reported 2 new cases of bird flu infection in Shanghai and one in rural Anhui province, bringing the total number of infections to 21. Six people have died from H7N9 thus far.. Many in China have criticized the government for delaying the release of information about H7N9, as the first two infections dated to early February. On Sina Weibo, China's vibrant microblogging platform, netizens debated why officials had waited 20 days to reveal a bird-flu fatality.. "Shanghai only informed the public that a patient had died of H7N9 20 days after it happened, saying that detection takes time" wrote Godfrey Go. "I hope this is the real truth, and that we have learned the lessons of SARS".. Yet some experts praised Beijing's relative openness and transparency about the disease, particularly compared to the widespread stonewalling that occurred during the SARS epidemic, which killed nearly 800 people a decade ago.. But in some quarters, the response to the health emergency has been less than level-headed. Hotheaded People's Liberation Army Col. Dai Xu accused the United States of conspiring to trick China into worry excessively about bird flu, and deploying so-called "bio-psychological weapons" against China — just as it had done, he said, during SARS.. "All of China fell into turmoil and that was exactly what the US wanted," he wrote on Weibo, as translated by South China Morning Post. "Now, the US is using the same old trick".. The bird-flu crisis presents a challenge and an opportunity for the administration of Xi Jinping to make good on his vow to increase government transparency and accountability to the people.. Meanwhile, just weeks after over 16,000 putrefying pigs were pulled from Shanghai's Huangpu river, more than 250kg of dead carp had to be retrieved from a river in the city's Songjiang district. Mystery still surrounds the cause of death, but numerous explanations have surfaced in the Chinese media since residents first complained about the foul-smelling fish last Monday. Theories reportedly include climate change, electrocution, an explosion or even a drug overdose. The Shanghai Daily quoted a local government official who "speculated" the fish could have been "drugged." So, in China things are so good, even the fish are ODing on sleeping pills? China has become notorious for its polluted rivers, largely as a result of decades of unbridled economic growth. Last year a senior official conceded 20 percent of the country's rivers had become "too toxic for human contact".. Shanghai authorities have so far denied the "fish kill" was caused by water pollution, citing the absence of chemical plants near the river. Whatever the cause, authorities insist there is no risk to public health or drinking water sources.. "The river's quality hasn't been affected by the dead fish so far. It remains the same level as usual," an official named as Mr Zhang told the China Daily. He did not explain what the usual level was.. Nor was there a connection between the dead carp and the thousands of rotting pig carcasses pulled from Shanghai's Huangpu last month, local environmental official Liu Fengqiang said.. One river-dweller told the China Daily he had stopped using tap water in the wake of the two scandals. "I need to trust my sources of water. I'm still haunted by the dead pigs," Shi Hua said.. The samples of the dead fish have been sent for testing and the fish themselves have been laid to rest. All the dead fish plucked out of the water were "supposedly" buried safely, the Shanghai Daily reported.. But as Beijing commentator Bill Bishop said, the public's lack of confidence in the Communist Party makes it extremely difficult for officials to count on people's trust.. "The government is in a difficult position. Few believe it will be transparent, and if it is then many will assume the situation must be even worse than it is. How do you manage pandemic fears in the social media age, especially when your track record of information management has led to a credibility crisis"??
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