Nine residents of another Hong Kong apartment building have come down with SARS, meaning that a second apartment building may be quarantined, with no one allowed to enter or leave. Doctors think the SARS epidemic in Koway Court was started by a resident who sold fast-food near the Amoy Gardens housing estate, where more than 320 people have come down with the disease. A SARS patient with diarrhea infected the other people in Amoy Gardens due to a leaking sewage pipe, but there is no evidence of similar problems at Koway Court. Rats and cockroaches stepped in the sewage and spread it between apartments.
Health workers are now taking the temperatures of departing passengers at Hong Kong’s airport, in order to encourage the resumption of tourism by making people feel safe boarding airplanes. One traveler says, “These are extraordinary times, it must be done. Everyone will feel more assured knowing that everyone else is healthy on the plane.” The government will do the same for incoming passengers, and will also check people at sea and land borders.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
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