The SARS outbreak seems to have peaked, and the public has started to breathe a sigh of relief. In light of our painful experience in fighting SARS over the past three months, we should review our success and failure with an open mind.
"Past experience, if not forgotten, is a guide for the future." If we can be modest and open-minded, considering the following points will be useful.
Ignorance: If the general public is ignorant of SARS, do government officials necessarily know more about it? If the SARS patients are puzzled, do medical workers necessarily know better than the patients? Although we, humans, are an advanced species, we can still be at a loss in the face of a new situation or a new enemy. The SARS attack has fully exposed this weakness.
Cover-up: When SARS was spread from China via Hong Kong, some people saw the epidemic as a "Chinese pneumonia" and criticized China as the culprit. China deserved to be condemned both in speech and in writing. It was wrong of China to cover up the epidemic for as long as it did, thereby expanding the affected area from China to neighboring countries.
However, if we look at ourselves, we also have a cover-up problem. Those suspected of having the disease and medical officials have covered up cases since April. Criticizing China for covering up the extent of its outbreak is like the pot calling the kettle black.
Arrogance: After SARS broke out in Guangdong, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore and Beijing in March and April, we were arrogant to say that Taiwan's medical facilities are of a much higher standard than others and therefore we would be able to control the epidemic and keep the "three-zero" record (zero mortal-ity, zero community-acquired infection, zero export of the virus). While we were patting ourselves on the back, the epidemic broke out at Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital. Some people said that we claimed victory too early and suffered as a result.
God of plague: People normally feel sorry for the patients, but patients are put under quarantine once they develop SARS symptoms. People see these patients, whether they are suspected cases or real SARS patients, as the gods of plague. People avoid these patients and treat them with indifference. Children do not recognize their parents who are infected with SARS; husbands and wives do not speak to each other because of SARS.
What is even sadder is that medical institutions kick some suspected patients around like balls and no one wants to take them in. I wonder if this kind of phenomenon is also seen in civilized countries elsewhere?
Disorderly approach: Crisis management has become a prerequisite for modern society. We seem to have learned nothing from the Pachang Creek tragedy three years ago. The SARS outbreak at Hoping Hospital this time caused the public to panic. The hospital itself did not know how to handle it, and the relevant authorities were at their wit's end.
Facing such a serious situa-tion, the relevant authorities quarantined the entire hospital but lacked a complete set of measures. Medical workers were short of standard masks and protective clothing, and patients were kept in quarantine as if they were in a concentration camp. Some people said that our medical workers were fighting SARS like the members of the Boxer Movement in 1900, who held broadswords and pikes and used their flesh-and-blood bodies to stop the canons and firearms of the Eight Power Allied Force.
The authorities did not know the seriousness of the SARS outbreak. They failed to adopt a concentrated quarantine and dispatched some patients to other hospitals. The end result is that the outbreak spread to several major hospitals in Taipei and Kaohsiung. Everyone felt insecure as the battle front extended.
Looting the burning house: The SARS outbreak made masks so scarce that they became a target for some people to make a fortune out of a national disaster. The market price of a mask rose from its original NT$30 or NT$40 to several hundred dollars. The lack of protective equipment in various hospitals should have expedited imports if domestic production could not meet the demand. The commodities should have been distributed to the hospitals as soon as they arrived, but they were held up at customs for so long that those people in need could only sigh with despair.
What is so puzzling is that there were even cases of shortage or secret replacement during the distribution process. Isn't it too ironic to see this kind of phenomena happen in 21st century Taiwan?
We would not have suffered such a great loss had we tried to be more modest. For example, our government authorities could have sent some experts on a fact-finding mission to Singapore, Viet-nam and Hong Kong in February or March, to study local epidemic situations and local government measures so as to learn from these countries' experiences.
If we can try to be more modest and not complain about anyone, we should seriously review our SARS experience and make our people read and know more about this virus.
If we can try to be more modest, we should look squarely at the next enemy coming to us -- vicious monetary deflation. Our generation, or even the last generation, has no understanding of this enemy. In the last 100 years we have painfully experienced inflation but have never experienced deflation firsthand.
It is questionable whether our traditional finance and monetary policies will still be practical. Hopefully our relevant authorities will not fight another leaderless, war like that against SARS.
Yu Tzong-shian is a member of the Academia Sinica.
Translated by Grace Shaw
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