On constant guard against killer germs in Beijing
Orlando Sentinel

Natasha McKenzie takes her own pen to the bank, rides in taxis that boast "disinfected" stickers and uses apartment keys -- not fingers -- to push elevator buttons.

In Beijing, it's all about eluding killer germs.

"If I wash my hands one more time, they will dry up and fall off," the 27-year-old Orlando native said.

McKenzie lives in the heart of Beijing, the place hardest-hit by severe acute respiratory syndrome. The Chinese capital has about 2,500 cases of SARS and more than 100 deaths.

Citing a drop in the numbers of new cases in recent days and a strong show of commitment by China's government, World Health Organization official Henk Bekedam said that "we're moving in the right direction."

McKenzie tries to live without fear while arming herself against a virus that can invisibly penetrate lungs.

"It's a very awful thing we're fighting," she said.

McKenzie was a lifeguard for Disney Cruise Line in 1997 when a friend working as a recreation manager in Beijing convinced her to come work as a swim instructor. After about a year, she got a teaching certificate. Ever since, she has been teaching kindergartners at the International Montessori School of Beijing.

Guangzhou is the capital of a southern Chinese province called Guangdong, ground zero for the deadly virus. It wasn't until February that officials in China reported hundreds of cases of "atypical pneumonia" there.

By April, McKenzie's world as she knew it began to disappear. Each morning at the school, teachers washed the 300 students' little hands and checked their temperatures. They washed hands again several times a day -- at least 30 seconds per child.

Slowly, class numbers dwindled as parents' fears increased. At the end of April, the school closed.

By then, the government had begun revealing the true numbers of SARS cases.

"People freaked," McKenzie said. "Panic was everywhere. No one would even look at one another in the eye for fear they might contract SARS."

Locals formed long lines at grocery stores, like Floridians preparing for a hurricane, she said. In preparation for a possible quarantine, she stocked up on bottled water, juice, instant noodles, microwave popcorn and canned foods.

Some of McKenzie's friends recently headed north toward the Great Wall of China to go biking and hiking. But locals in a small village outside Beijing threw things at them, shouting at them to "keep their city disease away."

SARS warning signs hang everywhere in McKenzie's apartment complex, a 16-story building fewer than two miles from Tiananmen Square.

She carries extra clothes and a toothbrush with her, in case health officials quarantine her neighborhood while she is out. The government had quarantined nearly 18,000 people, including some of her friends and her tai chi instructor. McKenzie visits Orlando most summers and at Christmas. She said she misses the sounds and smell of the ocean, but the woman who as a girl wanted to be an astronaut, said she loved the space shuttle launches the most.

But even SARS isn't enough to make her want to come home for good. She loves Beijing, especially the Great Wall and "Old Beijing," for its ancient buildings and traditional hutong homes.

She can't wait to ride a bicycle through the narrow streets again, but for now, she'll take little victories.

McKenzie's school reopened recently, but only 11 of her students showed up, and several of those said they were moving back soon to their home countries because of SARS.

At the school, employees are not allowed to use public transportation to get to work, and must check their own temperatures and students' temperatures twice a day. A quarantine room for emergencies must be monitored 24 hours a day, have telephone lines and be large enough to hold 20 people.

Despite the initial shock and now ongoing battle against SARS, McKenzie feels relatively safe.

"Here is a (statistic) I heard the other day -- for every one person in China who gets SARS, there are 12 million that do not get it," she said. "As far as I am concerned, the glass is always half full."