Hotel a four-star quarantine station
May 04, 2009
Article from:
The Australian
HONG KONG: About 300 people in a Hong Kong hotel are under a controversial quarantine after a guest was found to have the A/H1N1 flu virus.
The extreme measure at the four-star Metropark Hotel in the Wanchai district requires guests and staff to stay inside for a week.
As masked police stopped people entering or leaving yesterday, guests waved to a growing crowd outside from their rooms. Guests who returned to the hotel ran into a scene of confusion.
The guests, who will be given preventive doses of Tamiflu, are free to move within the hotel, but have been encouraged to stay in their rooms and minimise contact with others. Doctors checked the temperatures of the guests, said Shi Wenjing, 27, a translator from Shanghai who is under quarantine. One person "was immediately taken away by several other doctors", she said by phone from her hotel room.
"It's a bit scary," Ms Shi said. "It's just like the scenes in Hong Kong-made TV dramas."
Despite the strict policy, efforts to track down and isolate guests who were outside the hotel when the quarantine went into effect late on Friday appeared spotty.
David Mahiet, 32, a Frenchman and guest of the Metropark, had gone out earlier in the day. When he returned, police told him that if he went inside, he couldn't come out. "Would anyone want to stay in there for seven days?" said Mr Mahiet, a buyer of gifts and eyewear who was in Hong Kong to attend a trade fair and was scheduled to fly out today.
He left and checked into a nearby hotel. No police or health workers made any attempt to stop him.
Some locked-out guests were brought to a hostel in a rural part of the territory, where they were offered accommodation, though also under quarantine.
Some argue that involuntary quarantines frighten people into evading detection and are difficult to police. Others say their widespread use in Asia during the 2003 SARS outbreak was key to ending the crisis.
During the SARS outbreak, 1755 people fell ill in Hong Kong and 299 died. The disease's spread was in part traced back to a single infected guest from mainland China staying at a Hong Kong hotel. Hong Kong's top health officials were criticised for failing to take action.
A patient diagnosed in Hong Kong on Friday with A/H1N1 virus, a 25-year-old Mexican, was kept in isolation at a hospital
May 04, 2009
Article from:
The Australian
HONG KONG: About 300 people in a Hong Kong hotel are under a controversial quarantine after a guest was found to have the A/H1N1 flu virus.
The extreme measure at the four-star Metropark Hotel in the Wanchai district requires guests and staff to stay inside for a week.
As masked police stopped people entering or leaving yesterday, guests waved to a growing crowd outside from their rooms. Guests who returned to the hotel ran into a scene of confusion.
The guests, who will be given preventive doses of Tamiflu, are free to move within the hotel, but have been encouraged to stay in their rooms and minimise contact with others. Doctors checked the temperatures of the guests, said Shi Wenjing, 27, a translator from Shanghai who is under quarantine. One person "was immediately taken away by several other doctors", she said by phone from her hotel room.
"It's a bit scary," Ms Shi said. "It's just like the scenes in Hong Kong-made TV dramas."
Despite the strict policy, efforts to track down and isolate guests who were outside the hotel when the quarantine went into effect late on Friday appeared spotty.
David Mahiet, 32, a Frenchman and guest of the Metropark, had gone out earlier in the day. When he returned, police told him that if he went inside, he couldn't come out. "Would anyone want to stay in there for seven days?" said Mr Mahiet, a buyer of gifts and eyewear who was in Hong Kong to attend a trade fair and was scheduled to fly out today.
He left and checked into a nearby hotel. No police or health workers made any attempt to stop him.
Some locked-out guests were brought to a hostel in a rural part of the territory, where they were offered accommodation, though also under quarantine.
Some argue that involuntary quarantines frighten people into evading detection and are difficult to police. Others say their widespread use in Asia during the 2003 SARS outbreak was key to ending the crisis.
During the SARS outbreak, 1755 people fell ill in Hong Kong and 299 died. The disease's spread was in part traced back to a single infected guest from mainland China staying at a Hong Kong hotel. Hong Kong's top health officials were criticised for failing to take action.
A patient diagnosed in Hong Kong on Friday with A/H1N1 virus, a 25-year-old Mexican, was kept in isolation at a hospital
