The China Teaching Web

Beijing authorities have been working hard to rid the 2008 Olympic host city of beggars, stray cats, bad English signs, polluted air, rundown hotels, and foreign students who are seen as a political threat to the Games. Now that hand-foot-mouth disease has once again reared its ugly head in China and poses yet another threat to China’s precious Olympic Games, should not the authorities move to ban all children from Beijing in August? The stray cats went to death camps; the beggars were sent back to their hometowns. I am confident that Beijing could find a ‘comfortable’ place for its children to rest and play during the Games in August. According to a quote from a WHO representative in the China Daily earlier this week, the EV71 virus is not seen” as a threat to the Olympics or any upcoming events, because the virus mainly infects infants and children.” With this brilliant logic from the WHO, Beijing should be completely safe for the thousands of athletes, foreign journalists, and spectators, so long as no children, infants or pregnant women are residing within the city limits. Problem solved, right?

Is Beijing going to move all children out of the city? Will they move to prevent foreign children and pregnant women from entering Beijing in August? Of course not. That would be a extreme even by the Chinese government’s standards. The point is, Beijing is learning the hard way that no matter how hard they try to remove all possible hinderances and distractions from the Olympics in 2008, there are some aspects of this event that they just simply cannot control. The CCP may be able to create rain, build river dams that stretch for kilometeres, and construct the world’s highest train route, but it cannot magically make disease disappear.

So far, the Chinese government appears to be taking the right course of action with its response to EV71. Unlike the SARS epidemic, during which the CCP attempted to suppress information and downplay the virus, the Party has been much more transparent with numbers and other information from the EV71 outbreak. Hopefully, if this disease continues to be taken seriously by the government, the virus will as the WHO has stated, not be a threat to the Olympic Games. One can be sure, however, that the thousands of foreigners who are planning to descend on Beijing in August are keeping a close watch on the EV71 developments in China.