Beijing ? A third Beijing hospital was sealed off Friday because of the SARS virus and more than 4,000 people were quarantined at home, part of the capital city’s sweeping measures that some angry residents say have come too late.

A waitress at a hotel complained that “the government hardly told us anything about SARS” a week ago.

“Now we’re having a big campaign, but I still have suspicions that we’re not getting all the information,” said the woman, who would give only her family name, Chen.

The closure of Ditan Hospital in the northern part of the city came less than two weeks after foreign reporters were invited to tour the facility that officials were touting as a showcase of the government’s SARS preparedness.

It wasn’t clear how many patients and staff remained inside Ditan, which specializes in infectious diseases and has 500 beds and 643 workers.

A hospital official said the building was closed to prevent spreading the SARS virus among visitors and non-SARS patients. Medical staff can “go out and come in with work passes,” said the official, who gave only her surname, Li.

According to new figures from the Health Ministry, Beijing’s SARS cases had risen to 870 — about a third of China’s total of 2,601. The nationwide death toll stood at 115, with 42 fatalities in Beijing.

Canada, the hardest hit nation outside of Asia, has reported 19 deaths from the disease, the latest on Friday night.

Meanwhile, disease experts disagreed whether the respiratory virus that has killed 275 and sickened nearly 4,600 people worldwide can ever be contained.