FC: Reason article on SARS outbreak: Panic or plague?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.reason.com/hod/dmc041703.shtml

   April 17, 2003

   SARS: Panic or plague?
   Misinformation spreads even faster than the virus itself.

   By Declan McCullagh

                                      
   Fear of an epidemic can travel and mutate even faster than the deadly
   disease itself.
   
   During the early days of the SARS outbreak, an intensive-care
   specialist at a hospital in Hong Kong turned to mailing lists to
   distribute his stark, first-hand reports. "This pneumonia is out there
   in the community," Tom Buckley told the Critical Care Medicine mailing
   list in a widely-distributed message on Mar. 24. "The numbers are
   increasing daily, and a third hospital is being prepared for the
   influx. How big this is going to get is anyone's guess." Buckley
   warned: "HK Government is downplaying the whole thing presumably
   because of the economic implications."
   
   Buckley was prescient. Since then, cases of SARS (Severe Acute
   Respiratory Syndrome) in Hong Kong have leapt fivefold, from 260 to a
   current total of 1,268 infections. Now the beleaguered community is
   shunned by travelers, its GDP projections are shrinking by the day,
   and surgical masks are as common as cancelled airline flights.
   Tuesday's death of nine SARS patients in Hong Kong, five of whom were
   younger than 45 years old, set a sad new single-day record.
   
   SARS is the first epidemic of the Internet age, preying on the fact
   that as information becomes more communicable, rumors become more
   communicable too. A teenager's Web hoax claiming Hong Kong's borders
   would be closed prompted runs on canned foods and toilet paper. A
   supermarket owner in Sacramento spent two weeks arguing that, contrary
   to rumors, neither he nor his family is infected with SARS, and his
   stores are entirely safe. On Tuesday, a Sacramento city councilman
   tried to quell panic by bravely chewing a ceremonial Granny Smith
   apple from the produce section in front of reporters.

   [...]



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