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Confidential to China: Spittoons!

by SecretsAdmin   ::   posted on May. 22, 2003 - 11:00pm

Regarding “SARS Wars” [May]: One possible factor which I have never heard mentioned concerning SARS is the complaint that I’ve read of people in China spitting on the street. Riding the Edge, by Dave Barr, talks about the sidewalks of Beijing being covered with people’s spit. The author spent the winter there. He said that it was hard to not step in it. And shortly before the SARS epidemic, there was an article in the paper about the Beijing government cracking down on people who spit in the street because they feared that it would not look good for the upcoming Olympics. Might this habit have contributed to the spread of SARS? And maybe explain why it has not been so prevalent elsewhere in the world?
Ross G. Kiihn, St. Paul