SHANGHAI, China, April 28 (UPI) -- Ignoring health warnings and nationwide travel restrictions, millions of migrant workers are expected to return to their native provinces this week for the May Day holiday, fueling concerns over the spread of the SARS virus that has already killed at least 139 people in mainland China.
Deng Wei, a 31-year-old construction worker in Shanghai, said despite the concerns he plans to go back to his hometown in China's southern Guangdong province to visit his wife and their 3-year-old daughter.
"I know some people who are staying, because the bosses have been ordered not to let them go home," said Deng, whose family lives in the suburbs of the provincial capital of Guangzhou, where severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is believed to have surfaced last November. "I am worried about going back there because I know some people in my town have gotten sick, but I miss my family too much."
Chinese officials have curtailed celebrations for the "golden week" holiday, which begins May 1, in a last-minute attempt to prevent people from traveling and possibly spreading the SARS virus. Last week authorities canceled the holiday, but later restored five days, amid fears of economic loss from a lack of consumer spending.
Travel agencies have been banned from transporting people from one province to another, but authorities have been unable to prevent the flow of migrant workers out of major urban centers by trains and buses. Many of them, like Deng, are ignoring the health advisories and traveling to provinces with high infection rates, prompting concerns among city healthcare workers that they might return with the SARS virus.
"This is the only time of the year I can see my family ... of course I'm going home," said one man, who only gave his surname, Chen, waiting for a train to Zhejiang province at Shanghai's crowded railway station.
Health officials in Shanghai have good reason for concern. Tens of millions of migrant workers, who have come to the city in recent years to look for jobs, return home every year to some of the poorest regions in China -- most which lack the facilities and equipment to detect or treat those infected with the SARS virus.
"We are extremely worried about the possibility of migrant workers going home to infected provinces and then returning to the Shanghai," an official at the city's health bureau told United Press International.
According to the latest figures issued by the Health Ministry, China has 3,106 confirmed SARS cases in two-thirds of the nation's provinces. The nationwide death toll was at 139, with 59 fatalities in Beijing.
So far, Shanghai, China's largest and most affluent city, has avoided the ever-rising numbers of infected and resulting panic that have brought the nation's capital to its knees. Officially, there are only two confirmed cases of SARS in this metropolis of more than 16 million inhabitants, but health workers and others say the real number could be much higher, as the city has not been subjected to the same reporting regulations as Beijing.
Scenes like those in Beijing -- hospitals, schools and entire neighborhoods being quarantined by officials as thousands of others flee the city to escape the spread of the SARS virus -- could prove devastating to Shanghai's growing reputation as an international destination and center of trade and commerce in Asia.
A team of experts from the World Health Organization, speaking at a news briefing Friday marking the end of a five-day visit to the city, said they expect SARS cases in Shanghai to increase in the next week. The city's low rate of infection so far may be attributable to the absence of "super-spreaders" or highly infectious individuals who unknowingly carry the SARS virus, infecting large numbers of people.
The team praised the city government's efforts to curb the spread of the disease, but expressed concern.
"We think the system is working well right now, but the system has not been tested by a large number of suspected cases," WHO team member Daniel Chin told reporters at the briefing.
Unlike Beijing, where authorities are desperately trying to prevent people suspected of contracting SARS from leaving for other regions, officials in Shanghai say the threat from SARS is coming from the outside.
"It would take only a few undetected SARS cases, returning to Shanghai from another province, to infect hundreds, possibly thousands of people," said Li Bao, a medical worker at Shanghai's Huashan hospital.
Worried about the possibility that Shanghai's luck might run out, city residents have stocked up on masks and traditional medicines said to strengthen the body's immune system in an attempt to resist the virus.
State media outlets, which until recently were restrained under a news blackout on the SARS outbreak, have devoted near blanket coverage to the government's efforts to fight the disease. Nightly newscasts disclose the government's latest figures on suspected SARS, reporters interview healthcare workers in face masks and body suits in quarantined hospital wards, and doctors advise citizens about the illness.
Workers with masks can be seen scrubbing subways, train stations and bus stops and medical inspection teams are checking passengers as they arrive at the airports and stopping vehicles at the city's borders.
The city's growing expatriate community, with more access to outside news and information on the virus, has not been waiting for the number of infected to rise and some have already left the country. Hundreds of foreign teachers, business executives and diplomats and their families have taken a leave of absence, fearing that soon Shanghai might become the next major hot-zone in China's escalating SARS epidemic.
"I sent my family home last week, I'm planning to join them next week," said Eric Wilson, a 35-year-old computer software designer from Columbus, Ohio, who works for a U.S.-based firm in Shanghai. "There's just no reliable information. I don't trust the officials to tell their own people the truth, let alone foreigners."
