A survey showed that Beijingers' concern over SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, is easing, and nearly 70 percent of Beijing residents believe the outbreak of the flu-like epidemic will be contained within six months.
The rate was 10 percentage points higher than a dozen days ago, according to the survey, conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
This indicates that people's confidence in the municipal authorities' ability to control the epidemic is rising, said Wang Erping, a CASS researcher, quoted by Saturday's China Daily.
In early May, most people were afraid of contracting the infection themselves, the survey result showed, but currently, they are most concerned over the problems of curing SARS patients, bringing the contagion under control quickly and tracing the infection source.
More Beijing residents are heading outdoors with the decline of the number of SARS cases, the newspaper said.
Residents in Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan and Hohhot in North China also appeared less concerned about the virus than people in southern China, despite their proximity to SARS-hit Beijing, according to a survey conducted in the four cities.
Since the number of suspected SARS cases had not tailed off, people still need to protect themselves in public areas, said Shi Kan, another CASS expert.
(Xinhua News Agency May 24, 2003)
