The arrival of the H1N1 flu in Hong Kong has brought a shiver to the city as it recalls the 2003 SARS outbreak, when fear of the mysterious killer turned the bustling metropolis into a virtual ghost town.
The first case of A(H1N1) in Asia was confirmed on Friday in a visitor from the virus’ Mexican epicenter, but even before that the hygiene mania of 2003 had returned.
Protective masks once again cover faces in restaurants and on public transport, cellophane has reappeared on lift buttons and shoppers have joined long checkout lines for bleach bottles to sterilize their homes.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Lily Lok, a risk management consultant, said the concerns sparked by the swine flu threat led her to recall a SARS-crisis moment when 100 masked students faced her in a lecture hall.
“As I walked into the hall, I saw a sea of white face masks. With no exception, everybody — including the lecturer — was wearing one,” she said.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed close to 300 people in Hong Kong, has left a heavy legacy in the city and visitors are often surprised that schoolchildren with just a slight cough happily don a face mask.
Public buildings are seldom without an easy-to-use disinfectant dispenser and the subway is plastered with tips about good personal hygiene.
The paranoia that dogged the city during SARS — when the WHO advised against any travel to the city — is still palpable for those who lived through it.
Paul Coffey, 30, who moved to Hong Kong the day SARS broke out, remembers witnessing the city’s bustling nightlife hub suddenly becoming completely deserted.
“My strangest recollection is of walking past Lan Kwai Fong one Saturday night and seeing that the main street was completely empty. And I mean that literally — not a soul in sight,” the Australian entrepreneur said.
Expat bankers shipped their families away and flights into Hong Kong were virtually empty.
But the outbreak was not without its lighter moments and many in the brand-obsessed city even saw the crisis as an opportunity to show off. One rich housewife was pictured wearing a HK$750 (US$97) Louis Vuitton-branded face mask, matching one worn by her poodle.
“The vision of the well-dressed man driving his brand new BMW, on his own, with all the windows wound up ... and wearing a face mask ... is one that shall live with me forever,” Coffey said.
Cleaners scrubbed every corner of the city — and the pavements are wonderfully clean to this day — while banks covered their ATM touchpads with a new cellophane sheet every 30 minutes to avoid contamination.
And although the government advised people to stay at home during the 2003 outbreak, Oscar Tan said he decided once to risk a night at a karaoke bar with a group of friends to kill the boredom.
“It was a funny scene of everybody singing through their face masks, with a microphone wrapped in layers of cellophane,” he said.
Housewife Amy Tso said she would always remember “1:99” — the bleach to water ratio that health officials recommended as anti-SARS cleaning solution — since she had followed the instruction diligently during the SARS period to sterilize her flat.
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