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Hong Kong has fewer coronavirus cases than the US, Singapore or Italy. That might seem surprising for a city that sits on the doorstep of mainland China and has intertwining business, tourism and personal connections with the source of the epidemic. The reason can be summed up in one word: Sars.
The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003 sowed extreme caution in Hong Kong, a former British colony that had returned to Chinese sovereignty six years earlier. The city, which maintained its own customs and passport controls after the handover, was home to an eventual 299 of the 744 Sars fatalities. That was the highest number worldwide, though the disease originated in southern China. The wariness instilled by that experience has persisted.
Take me. I still compulsively wash my hands, 17 years after the outbreak. I have friends that have been using toothpicks to press elevator buttons for years. Some use tissues to open the doors of public washrooms, or carry spare masks in their handbags in case they catch the sniffles. This is all evidence of the indelible impact Sars has had on Hong Kong’s psyche.
For many of us, advice from health officials on how to minimise the risk of Covid-19 infection has been superfluous.
Born in Hong Kong, I returned newly married to the city from a five-year spell in London in late 2002, a couple of months before Sars first appeared in China.
People in Hong Kong became aware of the disease the following March after a visiting
doctor from Guangdong, the adjoining mainland province, infected visitors on his hotel floor. He later died.
For months between the first infection, of a farmer in southern China, and mid-March when the World Health Organization issued a global alert, we were in the dark about the appearance of this mysterious new pneumonia-like illness. We continued to eat out, hold new year’s celebrations, and mingle freely. The fear that ensued when the spread of this deadly disease became public knowledge engendered habits many of us still can’t shake off.
Restaurants largely emptied, and stayed that way until Sars receded in the middle of the year. That pattern is repeating itself. Restaurants are suffering, especially after a hotpot dinner led to multiple infections among one family. On the other hand, Hong Kong’s hiking trails have been packed as crowds seek open spaces and fresh air where the chance of infection is lower.
Reminders of Sars are everywhere, from the ubiquitous face masks and near-empty subway carriages to the daily news flow. Officials ordered engineers to inspect toilets at a public housing complex in the city’s northwest after coronavirus infections emerged. That recalled the tragedy at Amoy Gardens, a cramped 19-block apartment development where 329 residents contracted Sars and 42 died after defective plumbing helped to spread the virus.
The vigilance instilled by these memories has contributed to Hong Kong’s relatively low number of Covid-19 infections:
97 and two deaths, out of a population of 7.4 million, while cases surpass 120,000 worldwide; deaths exceed 4300.
It’s debatable how much credit the Hong Kong government deserves for the low infection rate.
—Bloomberg
Nisha Gopalan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services. He previously was a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He has also worked for the Straits Times, ET NOW and Bloomberg News