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Sars threatening powers who Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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China
Apr 9, 2003
SARS threatens countries' political health
By Phar Kim Beng
HONG KONG - The atypical pneumonia known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is more than a mysterious virus that causes the lungs to collapse. In some areas, it is causing economies to experience a near pulmonary arrest. The flow of tourists is gradually trickling to a stop, as is consumer spending.
Some of the results of SARS have included canceled flights, the rerouting of air traffic to avoid places afflicted with SARS, the collective embargo imposed on businessmen hailing from Hong Kong and China in international exhibitions, and the insistence on the wearing of surgical masks by tourists entering Thailand if they have arrived from Hong Kong or other affected areas.
While no one can precisely identify the mode or modes through which SARS is transmitted - whether it is transmited via airborne droplets, through close physical contact, cockroaches or rats - the very ambiguity of the disease has forced people, understandably, to exercise extreme caution. Hands have to be washed, and rewashed, as urged by the authorities.
The libraries of major universities in Hong Kong, for instance, are bleached regularly, causing an acrid smell to permeate the facilities. The touching of physical surfaces, even hand-rails and elevator buttons, is avoided.
Nevertheless, regardless of how long SARS will last, its ultimate impact will go beyond dollars and cents to test governments' credibility. SARS is the litmus test of how governments understand the importance of global codes of conduct where transparency and accountability are increasingly important.
Failure to deal effectively with SARS would result in a public outcry. This in turn could inadvertently tap into a whirlpool of anti-government sentiments. To be sure, comparisons of how one government has dealt with SARS as compared to another has already been made, singling out some governments for praise, others for stern criticism, notably China. This trend has already started, and is likely to persist.
People in particular are liable to ask what actions their governments have taken in contrast to the steps taken by other countries. Such a line of questioning, while useful in enhancing a sense of urgency, would by the same token also force governments to emulate the initiatives of others, creating what political scientists call the "sameness effect". This has already happened in the case of Hong Kong and Singapore, to the detriment of the former.
Singapore's dexterous management of SARS through effective quarantine (with threats of legal sanctions), for instance, has drawn high praise from the public in Hong Kong. In contrast, when the first outbreak occurred in early March in Hong Kong, much resistance was still coming forth from the local authorities. Indeed, there was no clear-cut acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation in Hong Kong. As recently as four weeks ago, Hong Kong was still declared a "safe city", an announcement now proven untenable as the cases have increased.
Among Hong Kong's possible mistakes was the decision to not immediately close schools. Secretary of Education Arthur Li, together with Secretary of Health Yeoh Eng-keong, both felt the measure to temporarily close schools inappropriate. They argued that it would cause the Hong Kong economy to experience a partial shutdown.
Nor were hospitals quarantined. Prince of Wales Hospital, where the outbreak first brewed then raged by striking the medical staff one by one. It was only recently that all schools in Hong Kong were asked to remain closed until April 21.
The Singapore government, on the other hand, reacted swiftly when the outbreak first occurred. Schools were suspended. Areas of the hospitals where SARS patients were treated were quickly sealed and segregated from others.
Although Hong Kong is receiving the brunt of SARS, as it is adjacent to China's Guangdong province, the area where the viral outbreak is thought to originate according to World Health Organization (WHO), the cases in Singapore have been kept at at little over 100 with a handful of fatalities. In contrast, Hong Kong is now on the verge of reaching 1,000 SARS cases, with the health authorities claiming that the local hospitals would not be able to handle more than 3,000 cases if the SARS problem were to persist.
Yet by far the most serious political impact of SARS remains with countries where censorship and official denial have always been the norm, where "transparency" and "accountability" still remain rhetorical terms with little substance.
The Malaysian Home Ministry has officially directed all local dailies to "adjust" their reports on SARS by leaving out any mention of fatalities. This was to prevent Malaysia from being seen in an adverse light. Echoes of how North Korea and Myanmar manage their images resonate. Nor is China impervious to the temptation to resort to such ploys.
With 6 percent of its gross domestic product coming from tourist dollars, China has taken the same tack. Although Beijing has agreed to publish daily information of SARS at the urging of WHO, there has been no concerted campaign to inform the public of the severity of the problem.
Most Chinese remain oblivious to the infectious nature of SARS, viewing it as a problem that afflicts mainly the south. Yet this problem obviously cannot be contained by a government order or media smokescreen because of its highly contagious nature. Indeed, SARS cases can now be found in Beijing, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Shanxi province, Sichuan province and Hunan province. According to WHO statistics, 1,268 of 2,601 cases of SARS worldwide as of Monday had been reported in China, where at least 53 people had died.
Hence, just as scientists and microbiologists are now staring intently into their microscopes to identify the virus, governments in East Asia and the world, are also subject to keen scrutiny. If SARS is mishandled further, millions of angry people may start mobilizing and making demands from their governments - or worse.
Indeed, SARS is a ticking sociopolitical time-bomb. Governments that do not come clean with the cases and fatalities are bound to reap their public's wrath. Indeed, it should be remembered that when the Asian financial crisis erupted in 1997, several government leaders were toppled in Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. One can't deny that SARS could potentially have the same deleterious impact on the governments in the region.
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