Q Is Hong Kong handling the pneumonia outbreak properly?
If the question is, how transparent is the Department of Health in Hong Kong, the answer is: it is at least more transparent than the mainland's Ministry of Health.
If the question is, how useful are the daily Sars admission figures, the answer is: it is better than nothing.
The current categories only break down the admission figures into (a) health-care workers of hospitals and clinics and medical students; and (b) patients, family members and visitors. While this gives a general feel on how quickly the virus is spreading, it offers little other information.
Recent reports on TV have included the total admitted from Amoy Gardens. While that is interesting, it is not very useful if I am a resident in another block of Amoy Gardens and want to know which other blocks are potentially at risk. As a result, you have a mass exodus of Amoy Gardens residents.
As someone who needs to travel a lot for my job, I would be interested to know the number of air travellers infected during flights. So far there have been only a few flights reported from Beijing and Bangkok undergoing contact-tracing. How many individuals have been infected in flight who had no other direct contact exposure? How many crew members have been infected? Presumably, they are a high-risk group. The disclosure of this information would be most useful when I decide which business-related flight to take. Instead, I have cancelled all my travel plans until further notice.
