I would not describe myself as being paranoid about SARS, although Jia Hui takes my acute interest in the spread of the epidemic as paranoia. I am alarmed at the rapid increase in cases across the world - roughly a 100% increase per month for the last two months - and the less than honest approach that some Asian countries are taking to SARS.

China's dilly-dallying was the most blatant attempt to cover up the severity of the epidemic, but Hong Kong and Taiwan are no less deceptive, at worst, or deceiving themselves, at best, when dealing with the public on the issue. On the Hong Kong Health Department website, for example, under the FAQ section, the following can be found:

"29. Is it safe for tourists to visit Hong Kong?
Hong Kong has a high standard of medical care and effective disease surveillance systems in place. Therefore, Hong Kong is still a safe place to visit."

Oh, did we forget to mention that roughly 40 people in Hong Kong have died from SARS in the past week!

What Taiwan has in its favour is that it hasn't exported SARS, yet. All incoming airline passengers are having their temperatures taken when they land, and if their temperatures are normal they are allowed through customs. The extraordinary thing about this ineffective step is that SARS takes 2-10 days to manifest itself. A healthy disembarking passenger may be a sick patient in less than a week. Additionally, outbound passengers are not screened for SARS, not that this is an entirely effective measure either, for the same reason that screening incoming passengers is ineffective.

Why this seeming blase attitude to SARS? Money, of course. Hong Kong and Taiwan are struggling economies and China is trying to maintain it phenomenal economic growth and business confidence. Stocks Are Really Sliding with this SARS epidemic, but instead of taking painful aggressive short-term measures to control this monster, as Singapore is doing, these three countries have opted for deceit, hoping that the rest of the world is as stupid as they think they are.

24 April 2003

Dion Marc Delport

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