I am out of China at the moment, but I can say from Chinese media buzz is that it is now almost certain that China's SARS numbers already passed hundreds by early-mid November.
It appears that by late November, the government first took a notice of the outbreak, and by early December it was already a complete freak out.
How the government knew? China has built a nationwide electronic infectious disease reporting system after the first SARS outbreak with specific intent of spotting SARS recurrence. Hospitals in China are required by law to report anything with a remote semblance of SARS into the system. China also holds nationwide drills for infectious disease specialists annually with SARS comeback in mind.
Any claim that China was caught unprepared are hard to believe.
Given that first reliably confirmed info on Beijing dispatching orders to provincial governments on handling a "disaster" also comes onto first days of December, it seems very, very likely to me that they already knew of it being SARS in December.
I also heard of what I have no ability to confirm, like the talk of huge pileups at HK border crossings in first days of December, and a spike of private jet departures.
It appears that by late November, the government first took a notice of the outbreak, and by early December it was already a complete freak out.
How the government knew? China has built a nationwide electronic infectious disease reporting system after the first SARS outbreak with specific intent of spotting SARS recurrence. Hospitals in China are required by law to report anything with a remote semblance of SARS into the system. China also holds nationwide drills for infectious disease specialists annually with SARS comeback in mind.
Any claim that China was caught unprepared are hard to believe.
Given that first reliably confirmed info on Beijing dispatching orders to provincial governments on handling a "disaster" also comes onto first days of December, it seems very, very likely to me that they already knew of it being SARS in December.
I also heard of what I have no ability to confirm, like the talk of huge pileups at HK border crossings in first days of December, and a spike of private jet departures.