When you are under a diagnosis they tell you that they can't tell the extentof your disease or how quickly it will progress so you are under the threat of death at this point.
In Beijing, meanwhile, Mr Hu has disappointed reformers whose hopes had been raised by a new openness in the wake of SARS. China had been so humiliated by the criticism it endured for initially denying the extentof the danger posed by the disease (and thus hastening its spread) that the government declared a new policy of transparency in matters of public health.