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Beijing celebrates end of its epidemic

People in Beijing applaud as balloons are released during a ceremony held to kickstart the city's travel industry yesterday after the WHO lifted its travel advisory. PHOTO: REUTERS

With flying confetti and clanging gongs, Beijing yesterday celebrated the lifting of the World Health Organization's (WHO) SARS travel warning over the city, reopened discos and Internet cafes and sought to resuscitate its battered tourism industry.

Banner headlines in Chinese newspapers cheered WHO's announcement Tuesday giving a clean bill of health to the capital of the nation where the outbreak began and lifting the last remaining SARS warning anywhere in the world.

"Our wish is finally fulfilled, we smile again," the popular Beijing Youth Daily said above a photograph of city residents posing in front of a banner reading, "We win!"

"Beijing returns to normal," the China Youth Daily said on its front page.

Beijing was simultaneously removed Tuesday from a WHO list of places with recent local transmissions of the disease -- a move recognizing the passage of more than 20 days since the last SARS case was isolated.

City travel bureau officials and representatives of tour agencies rallied at the Beijing Exhibition Hall to relaunch the city's tourism industry. Hotels, tour agencies and transportation companies are reported to have suffered 16 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion) losses during the outbreak.

An estimated 10 million fewer visitors came to the city during the first half of the year due to domestic travel restrictions and foreigners heeding the April 23 WHO advisory, which urged people to delay any non-urgent trips.

"We've taken the opportunity of this suspension to move the Beijing travel industry up a step," said Ding Changjiang, director of the Beijing Travel Bureau.

"It's offered us a chance to get rid of some unhealthy, environmentally unsound practices," Ding said in a speech to about assembled representatives and their families.

Musicians in traditional red and yellow outfits banged drums and gongs as confetti and streamers were shot into the air from a cannon over the hall, a hulking Soviet-style structure dating from the 1950s.

Attendees then boarded buses for a ceremonial first tour of scenic spots on the outskirts of Beijing, most of which were closed to outsiders as part of sweeping measures to contain the spread of SARS.

Feng Wanqing, general manager of Beijng's Nangong Hengye Tour Agency, said her company had been preparing for the reopening of business by giving employees additional training and sprucing up equipment and offices.

"No one that I know of in the travel industry in Beijing was laid off. They all made good use of the time off to improve their services," Feng said.

The lifting of the advisory got a calm reception from Beijing residents, most of whom had already resumed normal life weeks ago after numbers of new SARS cases began falling.

The city announced yesterday the reopening of discos, Internet cafes and other public entertainment venues closed at the height of the outbreak two months ago. Many venues, including cinemas and swimming pools, already had been allowed to reopen.

Beijing accounts for more than half of China's 347 deaths and about half of the nation's 5,000 cases of the disease, first detected in southern China last November.

At Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, employees removed surgical masks that they'd donned as a measure against SARS.

"It's such a relief to have them off finally. They were so hot and inconvenient," said Wang Feng, a trainee behind the counter at a KFC in western Beijing.

City officials have said some prevention measures will remain indefinitely such as special fever clinics in hospitals and temperature checks at airports and bus stations.

The number of people hospitalized with SARS in Beijing fell to just 43 on Tuesday, down from more than 1,000 at the height of the epidemic.

Schools, also ordered closed in April, have begun to reopen, though some classes aren't scheduled to resume until late July.

Bars and hotels that closed for lack of customers at the height of the outbreak also have begun to reopen, though many say business is still slow.
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