Plagued With Memories

The line between fully functioning metropolis and plague-ridden ghost town is a surprisingly thin one, as anyone who lived through Hong Kong’s 2003 SARS epidemic can attest. One day it’s all horse races and cocktail parties; the next it’s isolation wards, empty restaurants and paranoia.
I was reminded of that line again while reading this morning’s papers, which report the closure of all of the city’s primary schools in the wake of a mysterious flu outbreak that may or may not have had a role in the deaths of four children and the hospitalization, in intensive care, of another. The pictures have not been heartening. We’ve seen grieving parents emerging from hospital, and squadrons of children at school gates, wearing face masks and having their temperatures taken. This afternoon, I noticed that someone had left a box of face masks in the office pantry. The last time I remember that was five years ago this month—at the start of SARS outbreak.
It’s rather more déjà vu than I care for.