Living Information

2003-05-14

[Lead-In]
1. The World Health Organization says migrant workers have carried the SARS virus from Beijing to the Chinese countryside.

That’s right. One construction company that relies heavily on migrant workers is trying to keep its workers in the capital by taking some precautions. Lisa Rose Weaver has this report from Beijing.

[Story]
2. Throughout Beijing’s SARS scare, work continued at this construction site for an office and residential complex. Like all building sites in the city, it relies on migrant laborers.

3. To make sure none of the workers spread SARS, everyone's temperature is taken each time they arrive on site. There's a clinic inside for anyone who does show a fever -- a few workers did -- but were found to have normal colds. One man remains hospitalized under observation.

4. Soho China, the developer, hasn't calculated how much the precautions are costing, but regulations to contain SARS have slowed down business.

[Xu Qiang, Construction Manager]
"The SARS situation is relatively serious, so there are restrictions on delivering building materials to Beijing. And some of the drivers have been quarantined after they left the city.”

5. This is the biggest project in the city's central business district. It's 700,000 square meters. And to complete it, it’s going to take lot of labor - some four thousand workers. About a third of them refused to leave their dormitories when SARS first broke out. On camera they say now they're confident that anti SARS measures are working.

"We decided not to be afraid of SARS. The government is taking measures, and there is a way to prevent and cure SARS, so we are not afraid."

6. But one man says out of the 30 workers he brought here from his home village - two thirds fled Beijing.

The development company says only a minority have left the city and won't allow any more interviews with workers which might prove otherwise.

7. What's more clear is that business here -- as in most parts of the city -- is going on --- slowly -- because disease prevention is now as important as production.

Lisa Rose Weaver, CNN, Beijing