[per loin]

HONG KONG —  Public sector health workers in Hong Kong are up in arms, claiming that they have unnecessarily been exposed to danger as the price to pay for the government trying desperately to allay the public's fears over the spread of an atypical pneumonia that has claimed at least nine lives world-wide.

In the face of a possible epidemic outbreak of what has been labeled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Hong Kong government is advising its medical staff to take no chances, while at the same time telling its citizens and the world that there is nothing to worry about.

Angry doctors and nurses gathered on Monday at the partly-closed Prince of Wales Hospital to voice their protest against the government's handling of the situation.

The president of the Public Doctors' Association, Dr Leung Ka-lau, has described the situation in Hong Kong as "red light", without giving further details. He criticized the government for misleading the public into believing that Hong Kong was in the "yellow light" stage.

[Mother Abigail]

Good catch,

I expect more of the same, within a day or so we should have e-mail connections in the heart of the beast.