Prometheus 6   

What the hell is going on?

In U.S., Fear Is Spreading Faster Than SARS
By DEAN E. MURPHY

This article was reported by Jennifer 8. Lee, Dean E. Murphy and Yilu Zhao and written by Mr. Murphy.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 - The rumors have been frantic and virtually impossible to contain.

In this city's Sunset District, word spread that the owner of a popular dim sum restaurant was gravely ill with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. In San Gabriel, a suburb of Los Angeles, a flurry of anonymous e-mail messages said the police had closed an Asian supermarket and a restaurant because of SARS outbreaks.

In Seattle, there was talk that two cashiers at a grocery store had come down with the disease. And in Honolulu, people said a worker at a roasted-meats shop in Chinatown had been infected.

None of the reports were true, but the truth did not matter much. Business fell off as thoroughly as if there were a boycott. In San Francisco, even shops near the dim sum restaurant were shunned until a top county health official appeared on the sidewalk on Monday assuring people that the neighborhood was safe.

Along the West Coast, a region whose identity is defined in large measure by its economic and cultural ties to the Pacific Rim, as well as in other parts of the country like New York City, a psychology of fear has taken hold, particularly in Asian immigrant communities.

The fear about SARS, the mysterious respiratory disease first reported in China, has spread even though no one in the United States has died from the disease.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/17/2003 11:52:57 AM |