| Just want to share with you my dining experience in Hong Kong. As with Shanghai, all the waiters and food handlers are required to wear surgical masks. They are suppose to keep the dishes covered until they are brought to your table. No more buffets and many Japanese sushi bars have closed temporarily. It is common to see frontline restaurant staff wearing disposable gloves as well. I have seen waitresses spraying a disinfectant on the tablecloth before setting the table, but have not seen them spray on the chair or sofa. As far as the SARS situation in Shanghai, perhaps no news is good news. Any words from the WHO will be scrutinised by the world press, even if there is no follow-up press reports as of yet. But it is a highly sensitive topic for China, and the WHO will be careful about what they say. Indeed, the WHO team has been extremely diplomatic in this whole affair. This behaviour is not typical of the Americans or the Swiss/German, and I'd say it is quite unprecedented. On more than one occasion, the WHO team has politely held back even when they clearly disagree with a particularly line of thought. A case in point is Chlamydia vs. Coronavirus as the purported cause of SARS. When the team visited Guangdong a few weeks back, one would expect the WHO to say flatly and firmly that they believe Coronavirus to be the most likely cause of SARS in Guangdong. But instead, they took one step and added that nothing should be ruled out at this time. They encouraged more research to be carried out. Less than a week after the WHO team left Guangdong, Chinese scientists announced that new research results has ruled out Chlamydia as a likely cause. They consider Coronavirus to be a more likely cause of SARS. A coincidence, may be? But the words they used that ensured no loss of 'face' for anyone. xl |
My Dinner Impacted by SARS