Panic grips Beijing as leaders admit tenfold rise in Sars infection rates

China sacked its Health Minister and the mayor of Beijing yesterday and cancelled a week-long May Day holiday after suddenly increasing the figure for Sars cases in the capital.

Beijing has more than 700 confirmed and unconfirmed cases, ten times more than initially admitted, putting it among the communities hit hardest in the world, behind only Guangdong province and Hong Kong. Even now there are doubts whether all the figures in China have been revealed.

The government's actions come after an emergency politburo meeting on Thursday ended weeks of lies and evasions by top officials who tried to deceive World Health Organisations experts struggling to control the outbreak.

In the meantime, the sense of panic amid the Chinese population has spiralled. Public opinion surveys conducted secretly by the government have revealed a rising tide of anger. People have stopped flying on planes and public meeting places are deserted. School and university classes have been suspended. In Beijing all the main international hotels are almost empty, while most people are wearing double face masks and disinfecting their homes and offices. People have been told to eat garlic and a turnip-type vegetable as an antidote. Foreign visits have been cancelled or postponed including that of Tony Blair who was scheduled to arrive this week.

Shopkeepers are using surgical gloves and railway staff are disinfecting stations and giving passengers random temperature checks.

The growing unease was also evident in Canada, the country affected worst outside Asia, where a 14th person has died. Fears that Toronto's health system is now infected saw a leading hospital close its critical care unit after four staff members began showing symptoms.

Meanwhile, Singapore, the country with the fourth-biggest toll, shut its wholesale vegetable market and quarantined all 2,400 workers. South Korea said it was considering a ban on some blood donations. Indonesia deployed troops to help medical staff to examine returning workers and normally bustling Hong Kong was like a ghost town .

China's admission that things were far worse came from Gao Qiang, the deputy health minister, who said an investigation ordered by leaders on 15 April had revealed 339 infections, 18 deaths and 402 suspected cases in Beijing – vastly higher than the 37 cases and four deaths reported earlier. Such public sackings and public admissions of failure are extremely rare in Chinese politics where the principle of collective responsibility is normally applied "Someone had to be held accountable," said a Chinese government source.

Mr Gao denied that his ministry had deliberately misrepresented the facts.

"There is an essential difference between inaccuracy of Sars statistics and intentional cover-up of the situation of the disease," he said. China, he explained, had simply used a different system to report cases. Zhang Winking, the Health Minister, and Ming Xenon, the Beijing deputy party secretary, had repeatedly issued statements saying the position was under control and that China was safe to visit. The Health Minister said the disease was "under effective control".

On the contrary, the disease spread rapidly in the capital but to cover it up the authorities moved patients into military hospitals and did their utmost to deny access to investigators. When they did arrive, the patients were moved out of their rooms and driven around the city.

The World Heath Organisation was alerted to the crisis at China's largest transportation hub only by the courage of a military doctor, Jiang Yanyong, 71, who took the bold step of publicly revealing the number of cases he was aware of in the military hospitals.

WHO said on Wednesday there were probably as many as 200 people in Beijing infected with Sars, although the city government was then insisting that there were only 37 cases.

At least eight of China's poorer provinces, including Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, have reported Sars cases. Officials said hospitals in those areas may not be able to cope with contagion and the influx of patients.

The handling of the crisis has dealt China's reputation a severe blow. While the top leadership is primarily concerned at the impact on foreign invest-ment and economic growth, some observers hope it may have wider consequences. Some speculate it could be used by the incoming leadership to push for glasnost in the same way President Mikhail Gorbachev exploited the Chernobyl nuclear accident to push through changes in the former Soviet Union.

Until now, political reforms have not been on the agenda of President Hu who said in a public appearance at military research institute in Beijing yesterday he was confident of China's ability to find the methods to combat Sars.