Infectious Change by Mason Katherine A

Infectious Change by Mason Katherine A

Author:Mason, Katherine A. [Mason, Katherine A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2016-07-14T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter Four

Pandemic Betrayals

May 6, 2009

Dr. Han, a driver, and I are sitting in traffic in a large white van, headed for a downtown hotel. Dr. Han leans over from the front seat and hands me a white coat, a mask, and a blurry fax from the Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection. I squint at the fax, trying to make it out. It is a letter notifying the TM CDC that Jane Jones, an American woman who had been on a flight traveling from Los Angeles to Hong Kong with a passenger who had a confirmed case of H1N1 influenza, had crossed the border into Tianmai. The fax then lists her passport number and suggests that the TM CDC “take its own measures” to deal with the situation.

We arrive at the hotel and put on our white coats and masks. Our colleagues from the district CDC are already waiting for us with a hotel manager. They go over the information we have: The American and two South Korean colleagues took a car to the border and then crossed and took a taxi here. We don’t know what happened after that, or whom they may have come into contact with. We have this license plate number, the district CDC woman told us—can you see if she can tell us anything about the driver, the colleagues, the car, where they went? Dr. Han nods and gestures at me. Maybe the foreigner can.

We go out of the room with our masks and disinfection equipment and approach the elevator. Some guests waiting to go up to their rooms put tissues to their noses and mouths and start to back away. The hotel manager tries to reassure them: “It’s nothing!” [mei shi!] Two more guests walk into the lobby, hesitate, and also cover their mouths. One approaches the front desk to ask what’s going on; the other runs out of the lobby door, covering her face with a handkerchief.

We step out of the elevator and approach the American’s room. A tanned and freckled white woman in her midforties with blond shoulder-length hair answers the door. I greet her in English, and she nods at us and says, “why don’t you come in and sit down?”

We sit around a small table, with the American on the bed and Dr. Han and me in desk chairs. Dr. Han pushes the slip of paper with the flight and taxi information over to me, and I hand it to the American: “Were you on this flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong?” The woman nods. I go through the checklist of symptoms on the form, the woman shaking her head again and again. Headache? Cough? Fever? We hand her a thermometer—under the arm, I explain—and she unbuttons the top two buttons of her blouse, places it in her armpit, and waits. One of the district CDC women comes in: They found the other people in the car. Han rushes out, instructing me to finish the interview and to tell the woman that, regardless of whether or not she has symptoms, she will have to go into quarantine.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.