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Quarantined Chinese citizens say life boring, but easy
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-05 20:24 BEIJING - Quarantined Chinese citizens said Tuesday that they understand the medical measures taken to prevent the spread of influenza A/H1N1, despite the boredom of isolation. "Quarantine is boring, but easy. We watch TV and read newspapers to kill time," said a woman surnamed Wen, who is under the seven-day quarantine period at a hotel in Beijing after returning from Mexico.
The Ministry of Health said Tuesday none of the quarantined passengers in China had showed flu symptoms. Wen was woken up at midnight Saturday by a phone call from disease control staff, who informed her that she needed to be in quarantine because she was a passenger on the flight. "I saw an ambulance waiting in front of my house after I hung up. At that moment, I felt apprehensive," said Wen, who had experienced the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. She said she was not so nervous when she saw medical staff wearing protective suits come aboard the aircraft to check passenger temperatures at the Shanghai airport. "I felt safe because the Chinese government has taken strict and orderly disease-control measures," she said. She told Xinhua that people in quarantine lived in separate hotel rooms. Food, fruit and flowers were sent to their rooms. "We can talk by phone. Everybody sounds calm. We just complain life is boring," said Wen, adding their temperatures were taken twice a day. She said service staff wearing masks cleaned and disinfect their rooms everyday. Twenty people were quarantined in Beijing, including 10 Mexicans, said Deng Xiaohong, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Health Bureau. "I think the quarantine is necessary and responsible, regardless of nationality," said Wen. A Chinese surnamed He, quarantined in Guangzhou, said Tuesday he fully understood the measures taken by the health authorities. A worker at a local factory that had sold equipment to Mexican clients, He and his factory director had stayed in Mexico for 12 days to help their clients conduct equipment tests in April. They arrived in Shanghai on April 30 on flight AM098 from Mexico City. "I knew I would be quarantined as soon as I learned that a Mexican man on board the same flight was diagnosed with A/H1N1 in Hong Kong Friday night, so I wasn't surprised to see quarantine personnel stand outside my family's door the next morning," he said. "It's because we Chinese experienced SARS and we know how to deal with such an epidemic," he said. |
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