- BEIJING (Reuters) - China
reported fewer than 100 new SARS cases on Monday for the third straight
day, raising hopes it might finally be taming the killer virus, but the
U.N. health agency said it was too early to say the worst was over.
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- The number of new cases was also ebbing in Hong Kong,
where 250,000 children returned to school on Monday after a six-week break,
and there were signs of reviving confidence on Beijing streets. But the
number of deaths continued to mount in Taiwan.
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- China, which has been hardest hit by the epidemic, logged
75 fresh cases, among the smallest daily totals in the three weeks since
it started reporting its caseload honestly. The lowest figure so far has
been 69, reported on Sunday.
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- Beijing accounted for 48 of China's new patients. Late
last week the capital was still reporting 100 to 150 cases a day.
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- But the World Health Organization (WHO) said it lacked
the data needed to determine whether the tide had turned in China, where
the death toll rose by 12 to more than 250 people.
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- More than 5,000 people have been infected in China, the
bulk of the global total of more than 7,000.
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- "We don't feel that we can make a real conclusion
about how the epidemic is evolving," spokeswoman Mangai Balasegaram
said.
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- Officials also declined to let their guard drop after
Premier Wen Jiabao said on a trip to the northern province of Shanxi the
spread of the flu-like illness had not yet been fully controlled and still
threatened China's vast countryside.
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- Last week, a top Beijing health official said he did
not know where about half the city's new SARS patients caught the disease.
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- BACK TO CLASS
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- Hong Kong reported a further three fatalities, raising
the figure there to 218 but schools reopened, a sign that the hard-hit
city was resuming normal life.
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- Children, wearing masks, returned to class. Each student
underwent a temperature check at the school gate and washed their hands
in newly installed basins.
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- Despite the fuss, children said they were glad to be
back.
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- "At the beginning, I had great fun. But after a
while, I started feeling really lonely," said Ivan Chung, a primary
five student at Baptist Lui Ming Choi primary school.
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- The government reported five new SARS cases, the ninth
day running that new infections were in single digits, but the WHO said
it would be some time before it would withdraw a travel warning it issued
for Hong Kong more than a month ago.
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- "Nobody should have expected it to be today or even
in the near future," WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley told Hong Kong
Cable Television.
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- As infections slow, fewer Hong Kong people are wearing
masks and patrons have started to return to restaurants and bars.
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- SARS first surfaced in southern China last November.
Air travelers spread the virus worldwide, one taking the disease to Toronto,
Canada's largest city, where 23 people have died.
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- There is no known cure for SARS and six to 10 percent
of patients die from a disease that is passed on mostly by droplets through
coughing and sneezing.
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- DEATHS IN TAIWAN
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- Taiwan, which initially escaped the worst of the epidemic,
reported six SARS deaths and 23 more SARS cases on Monday, taking fatalities
to 24 and the number of infections to 207.
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- Nevertheless, government officials said there were no
signs the virus had spread into the wider community and they predicted
the virus would be under control in four to five weeks.
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- The outbreak has caused major damage to the economies
of China and its south-east Asian neighbors, with tourism particularly
hard hit.
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- China has closed most accessible sections of the Great
Wall, its best known tourist attraction, to help block the spread of the
deadly virus which has devastated tourism.
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- Shanghai's historic Peace Hotel, long a magnet for foreign
travelers, said it was shutting its doors for three months, opting for
a face-lift during the SARS outbreak.
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- But there were signs of reviving confidence in Beijing,
after weeks in which the capital's 14 million people were gripped with
fear bordering on panic.
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- Buses filled and traffic snarls reappeared in the city,
and the racket of pneumatic drills resumed on construction sites.
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- Hundreds of people, mostly youngsters itching for activity
during a mandatory month-long hiatus from school, gathered to play soccer
and basketball at the Dongdan playground along Chang'an Avenue, the capital's
main thoroughfare.
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- "I was so bored sitting at home, so I persuaded
my parents to let me come out here," said Michael Zhou, 11, wiping
the sweat off his temples after hustling up and down the basketball court.
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