ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN: China now probably has had more cases and deaths from the mystery pneumonia than any other country.

For months, Chinese officials tried to hide the problem, health experts said, and in recent weeks world health officials have applied increasing pressure on China to improve its cooperation and statistical reporting on the disease....In China, disease statistics are often regarded as politically troublesome and are not publicly released....With little hard information about SARS released by China's government, rumors of new cases have run wild in China's cities. The Chinese press has been banned from reporting on the topic.

ELISABETH ROSENTHAL also writes

As other countries provide international health monitors with daily updates of cases, China has still not provided recent statistics about the spread of the disease, even though it claims new cases are waning. The information shortfall is slowing scientists' investigation into an emerging epidemic when time is critical.