Coronavirus: has Hong Kong learned the hard lessons of Sars or is it repeating the same mistakes?
- Communication, response time, and facilities all under the spotlight as epidemic takes hold
- For former health minister Yeoh Eng-kiong the current crisis is bringing back painful memories of 17 years ago
After the Sars outbreak of 2003 claimed 299 lives in Hong Kong, a postmortem of the city’s missteps held a handful of senior officials accountable. The most high profile figure was health minister Yeoh Eng-kiong.
A Legislative Council report in 2004 found Yeoh responsible for a catalogue of failings, including insufficient communication with the public, poor supervision of the health department, and inadequate monitoring of the Hospital Authority, which did not have a contingency plan for large-scale outbreaks.
Yeoh had become the city’s health minister in 1999, but after this searing assessment, he bowed to public pressure and resigned, becoming a key fall guy for a crisis that devastated the economy, as tourism dried up and investors stayed away.
“One of the most important responses for any outbreak is communication,” he said. “It is not simply about handing out leaflets or holding daily press conferences. It is also the understanding of the impact on every sector of the community.”
With the experience of combating Sars, which stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome, together with the swine flu epidemic in 2009, the city’s government was expected to be more adept at handling the coronavirus epidemic.