10 Nov 2005

Flu of the century

I can't remember when did that happened already.

It was a fierce epidemic raging through the territory;
People keep dying, doctors in desperate doubt that solution nor source could be found;
The public is in great panic. Everyone felt their lives threatened when even the authorities and the professionals, whom they seek advice and help during situations, are helpless themselves this time;
The media blackens everything and threats everyone;
People tried to take their "hygenic precaution sense" to unbelievably high level, almost paranoid;
The city is so helpless that the only way to do was simply submerge everything into chlorine solutions, in a proportion of 1:99. Until the plague is gone, they will finally surface.

That was a few years ago already, though I don't remember which year was that exactly. It seems to be when I was Year 1 in CU.

That was 2003, I guess. That was SARS, I'm sure.

Fear and sadness that once sieged the poor little city silently slipped away as time goes on. HK people are always good at forgetting.

2 years later, we're now facing another epidemic that will soon arrive. This time, everyone else on Earth are shaken and alert, but not HK people. Vaccinations and tensions are together injected to the public in the foreign lands. What about us? Yes we had some measures now, as far as we can tell.

But where is the "excessively paranoid hygenic precaution" sense that the public had when they faced SARS? I don't see anyone shocked, shaken, or even moved here. The bird flu, which is imminent and perhaps more deadly than SARS, is striking from different directions now (refer yourself to the news).

Even National Geographic and Discovery Channel are describing this wave of bird flu as "Flu of the Century"...

Geeeeeeeeee...what happened?



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