Fear of the known - force that has crippled a city

By PAUL ALLEN in Singapore

Fear drips from the pages of the newspaper. It discharges from the television and the radio. It is carried on the warm winds of millions of people chattering.

It is stuck like contact poison to the buttons in the elevator, and the child in the supermarket coughs it all over your bag of apples.

Fear is one symptom of the Sars virus that you exhibit without ever contracting the disease, and it is perhaps the most debilitating.

The Sars virus has been described by Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong as the greatest crisis the city state has faced.

In a nation which loves to shop and eat out, it's had an effect similar to al Qaeda setting off a truck bomb in a mall.

Proportionally speaking, hardly anyone has been affected, but the resulting terror in the community has everyone running for cover.

Restaurants and shops have emptied, tourist arrivals are down 71 per cent for the last three weeks of April, and the majority of those still brave enough to pass through the airport are wearing surgical masks.

Never mind that they wear them around their necks, or with their noses exposed, rendering them useless. The first thing to do in a crisis is to do something, even if it is only wearing a silly mask incorrectly.

The fear transmitted by the Sars virus has sent Singapore to the canvas. The growth rate forecast has been slashed from 4 per cent to between a 0.5 and 2.5 per cent. For a country used to double digit growth, this is awful.

On the upside, I no longer require a booking in my favourite restaurants, and I can perform other previously impossible feats, like hailing a taxi during one of the city's famous tropical downpours.

Taxi drivers have been hit especially hard, and my driver yesterday was freaking out because his passengers have been freaking out.

They have been eschewing the normally Arctic air-conditioning and riding with the window down and their heads hanging out of it. They touch the door handles and window winders as if they have been painted with excrement.

Taxis are now viewed as some sort of wheeled Sars incubation chamber.

It is impossible to know who was in the cab before you and where they'd been and who they were with.

These unknown variables now make the warmth of the recently vacated seat radiate more than just the usual mild revulsion.

Now, that warm seat represents a heaving sea of virulent bacteria, creeping into your trousers and on to your flesh. You feel your temperature rise. Is it psychosomatic? Or am I really sick? Or is it just the baking heat?

As the fug of fear clouds your mind, its hard to know whether the illness is real or imagined. This is the real toll of Sars.



The population of Singapore is slightly more than 4 million and 203 of them have the disease.

And the Government knows who all of them are and has them either in hospital or essentially under house arrest, threatening them with jail terms and $10,000 fines should they break quarantine.

Of the 0.005 per cent of the population unlucky enough to contract the virus, 26 have died.

The chances of making a full recovery from Sars is 90 per cent in Singapore, lower than the chances in the rest of the affected countries.

But still, a 90 per cent chance of full recovery. I like those odds.



So I eat out, belching in the face of death from the best table in the restaurant. I shop with impunity, availing myself of the knockdown prices, confident that the Grim Reaper is not lurking in the fitting room.

And I hail taxis in the rain, pointing out to the quaking drivers that 357 people committed suicide in Singapore in 2001, so statistically speaking they are still more than ten times more likely to kill themselves than be killed by Sars.

Less than a year ago, we weren't afraid of Sars. We were afraid that the bar we had just walked into would explode and kill us. Or that car parked just over there would explode and kill us. Or the building we were working in would have a plane fly into it, which would then explode and kill us.

The chances of this happening were almost zero. You were more likely to be run over while crossing the road distracted by the thought of terrorism.

Once the threat of Sars has been nullified, we will find something new to be afraid of. Something new to threaten the economy, or the free world, or your health, or your house, or your children, or your lifestyle.

Diseases, dictators and terrorists come and go, but there is always a new monster under the bed.

- REUTERS