Överreaktion mot svininfluensan

Någon svininfluensa verkar inte ha nått Kina ännu, som tur är. Kanske beror det på de omfattande åtgärder som myndigheterna vidtagit. På sina håll har dessa insatser gått lite överstyr, kan man säga. James Fallows har flera läsvärda inlägg på sin blogg på Atlantic Monthly som beskriver exakt hur paranoida de kinesiska myndigheterna blivit av hotet om svininfluensan. Vad sägs om att sålla ut alla innehavare av mexikanska pass och isolera dem, oavsett om de varit i Mexiko sedan influensan bröt ut?

Gustavo Carrillo, a 36-year-old manager of a Mexican technology company in China who lives in Beijing, was taken off his Continental Airlines plane Saturday and rushed into quarantine at a Beijing hotel. He had traveled to the U.S. from China on a business trip and hadn't visited Mexico.

- A family of tourists -- two parents; a son age 8; and daughters ages 6 and 4 -- were staying in a five-star Beijing hotel. Like all foreigners in China, they had presented their passports for inspection on arrival. Their passports were from Mexico. At 4 am last night they heard a pounding on the door. Public-security officials asked them to come to the hospital for a few quick tests. In fact they were taken to a hospital and not allowed to leave. They received no drugs or treatment of any sort and were placed in a room where the beds and sheets still bore the marks of the previous ill and bleeding patients.

- As international flights arrive in Beijing, from any destination, passengers are being asked to show their passports before the plane comes to the terminal. Those with Mexican passports are not allowed to enter the city. They have been taken to a hotel for quarantine and are still there. Some 40 to 50 people are now being detained in this way. To be clear, this is not being applied to people who've recently been to Mexico, or who are showing signs of disease, or who have been exposed in some other way. It has been purely a matter of whether they are Mexican citizens.

Man får ha förståelse för att de kinesiska myndigheterna, märkta som de är av SARS och fågelinfluensan, tar hotet om svininfluensan på allvar. Men vetenskap och sunt förnuft måste väl ha en plats i ekvationen? Man undrar hur Kinas regim skulle reagera om kinesiska medborgare behandlades på detta sätt utomlands.

Själv ryser jag vid tanken på att bli behandlad på detta sätt i ett land där man som individ inte har en chans att argumentera med eller få rätt mot myndigheternas fullständiga godtycke.