March 10, 2003
Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, China
1,068 Infected, 118 Dead
HONG KONG’S INCIPIENT SPRING HAZE WAS BEGINNING TO MUDDY the clear winter skies so that Joseph Sung, chief of his hospital’s gastroenterology and hepatology division, could now barely make out the Hong Kong Island skyline as he drove his Lexus from his Ma Hong Sam apartment to Prince of Wales Hospital, in Shatin. He parked in the underground garage, and as he waited for the elevator, he reflected on his weekend visit to Seoul, where he had attended a medical conference on intestinal diseases. Seoul had been chilly, and he was grateful to be back in more temperate Hong Kong. Sung was a taciturn man, not prone to outbursts, and if his wife, Rebecca, a gynecologist, had any complaint about her stolid husband, it would be that his emotional intelligence was not on a par with his analytical skills.
Hong Kongers were just now paying attention to such matters, though they did so with an earnestness that undermined the more spontaneous and free-spirited expression such exploration was supposed to encourage. Books on matters of emotional IQ had lately been among the bestsellers at Hong Kong’s few bookstores, but Sung preferred to read business manuals, like Rudolph Giuliani’s book Leadership, along with recent papers on breakthroughs, or lacks thereof, in treating colitis and Crohn’s disease. With his deep black hair—colleagues suspected that he might dye it—broad shoulders, and steady, determined walk, he came across as the sort of firm, slightly stubborn clinician an intern or junior medical staffer would willingly follow into microbial battle.
That morning, as he flipped through his messages—his old college classmate, the perpetually worried and anxious K. Y. Yuen, from the University of Hong Kong, had called—he noticed something amiss on his desk. His secretary had placed the duty roster there, next to his messages, but had apparently not bothered to complete it. He called her to check what was going on and was told the duty roster was accurate. There were a lot of sick doctors and nurses.
Eighteen of them, in fact.
Joseph Sung put down the telephone and picked up the book he was reading.
What would Giuliani do?