Nouse.co.uk » Posters Fuel SARS Panic

Posters Fuel SARS Panic

May 13, 2003
Toby Hall

EFFECTS FROM THE international outbreak of SARS has now reached as far as York Campus. Societies and departments with a high proportion of foreign students have been concerned about the impact of the disease. Economics is being particularly careful, with information posters detailing symptoms and proceedures vieing with academic notices for the attention of students.

This has heaped stress on students studying for immenent exams. Some in Economics have gone as far as to claim that their results will be affected by the worry of a potential SARS victim spreading the disease during a test. Edmund Harris from Halifax noted ‘throughout the exam I was on edge. Every time someone coughed I jumped’. In an attempt to allay fears, admin put out a notice on the university website reminding students that foreign ‘returnees who are symptom-free are not a risk to others and should be allowed to continue their studies/work’.

However despite assurances from the university, the OSA has considered the possibility of discrimination towards strudents from or returning from SARS hot-spots such as China and Canada as a possibility. An email sent at the beginning of term advised members ‘If you have encountered any anti-SARS behaviour, please tell us’, and that this should be a ‘time of support, not paranoia’.

Considering that the UK has experienced only a handful of cases, and given a clean bill of health by the WHO student fear is clearly unfounded. What the university needs to do is win the PR campaign on the issue by convincing members that all is safe, something that it has so far failed to do.