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.
Why is everyone in this country terrified of
something? People scare of terrorists and missiles when they're more likely to be struck by lightning--twice--than to be caught in a terrorist act. SARS his killed 100 or so people worldwide, and idiots avoid Asian restaurants out of fear. So far it seems your average flu outbreak is more dangerous than SARS (naming diseases with four letter acronyms that end in Syndrome is gonna scare the snot out of people for decades to come).
We know who took the low road by inspiring and leveraging the fear of terrorists. I bet someone is working on generating a profit off this SARS fear epidemic as we speak.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/17/2003 11:52:57 AM |
