SARS AND SMS: Just got an email from Conrad at The Gweilo Diaries with the following additional information from ReOriented:

Miss Q. is pretty much immune to scaremongering on communicable diseases. Nevertheless, the admission by the government that they’d lied about the true number of SARS cases in China and the subsequent scapegoating of two saps up north did make for an interesting interlude. The rumour mill has as a consequence gone into overdrive, one indicator being a deluge of text messages to Miss Q’s mobile phone; 21 and counting when I left on Monday afternoon. All of these were forwarded messages that had in turn probably been forwarded hundreds of times. Origins have been lost in the mist of Chinese SMS space. Most were pretty innocuous, but a few stood out as truly stupid.

Here’s my favorite: “If you have received this message, you now have SARS! To cure yourself, send this message on to at least ten friends.” It’s also interesting, as he notes, to compare the text messages on SARS that are circulating with the official government statements.