What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Sunday, April 20, 2003

GREETINGS FROM ORAN

After coming back from sunny California into the tail-end of an ice storm, and then enduring a week of typically erratic April-in-Toronto weather, I wasn't surprised to find myself with a dreadful cold this past week. Muscle pains, laryngitis, night sweats...ahh, spring! What did surprise me was the panic my occasional coughs created in strangers around me, but that's SARS for you.

Since the onset of my cold symptoms this past Monday, over 30 people (and yes, I've been counting) have flinched away from me and asked if my cold is actually SARS. I think most are kidding; some are not. Since the War on Iraq has done so much to erode my faith in the public's rationality, this hysteria over an over-hyped illness has really been the last straw.

Am I being callous? Oh, probably, but consider that the thirteen deaths everyone is freaking out over have happened in a city of three million and that ten of those thirteen victims were older than 70. What doesn't make the front page is that twice as many people die of pneumonia every year, hundreds more of the flu. Those are odds I can literally live with.

Now of course I'm not suggesting people not be concerned, or that doctors not quarantine anyone they feel they should, but I hate seeing stupidity and bigotry and the SARS scare has featured lots of both. People are avoiding Toronto in general, Chinatown in particular, and I was told today about a man at the farmer's market who, upon seeing an Asian woman behind the counter, slapped a mask over his nose and mouth until he left the building.

I had a personal view of this, too. Within thirty seconds of Gil's father meeting us at the Toronto airport to offer a lift home, a security guard strode up to us and barked, "Okay, move it along!" I saw genuine apprehension in his eyes and wondered just how badly terrorism fears were affecting airport staff. I'd never witnessed a guard be quite so snippy before. Then I realized that my Chinese friends were standing in front of one of the many bright-yellow posters with big red letters reading "SARS" and everything became clear.

With all that as context, I hope people will understand why I've growled at everyone backing away from me in fear this week. I don't expect pity when I'm sick -- not even compassion, really -- but I'd resent being treated like some plague-carrying leper even if I did have SARS. We already saw a lot of that kind of paranoid bigotry in the 80's with that other four-letter acronym. Am I making too big a leap there? Then stop behaving like it, people, and go wash your hands once or twice.

Labels: Trawna