An epidemic of fear

Of all British exports, it is a tragedy that paranoia should be currently the most successful. If only the integrity of our armed forces and our distaste for corruption had proved as influential upon foreigners as our culture for total safety, the world would indeed be a happy place.

Touch down in some distant international airport and Britons will at once recognise the state of paralysis that gripped their own country during the foot-and-mouth crisis and after the Hatfield rail disaster. Most social life and much business activity in China has been suspended. In Hong Kong, few dare take to the streets, and those who do so insist on dressing as if for an excursion to the Planet Zog. The world’s pizza takeaways are doing roaring business as diners shun Chinese restaurants and takeaways. Toronto has become the first Western city to receive the dubious honour of being declared by the World Health Organisation to be ‘unsafe to visit’. Clearly, the WHO’s bureaucrats are not in the habit of venturing into the back alleyways of Peckham.

All this hysteria comes in reaction to a virus which, as we go to press, has killed a grand total of 334 people. Though sufferers may care to differ, as global epidemics go Sars has already revealed itself to be a relatively feeble one. In spite of a rich breeding ground, China, where more than a billion people live in cramped conditions, the outbreak is showing signs of peaking after managing to infect just 4,080 people. By contrast, malaria still kills 2,000 people a day. Even the common flu, which we have long come to view as just another of life’s little hazards, kills 5,000 Britons in an average winter. Sars is no more capable of keeping up with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse than a three-legged donkey is capable of winning the Grand National.