23 June 2009

Let me soothe thy fevered brow

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

At first, I thought I was in a "Star Trek" movie. Then I realised it was men dressed in space suits and masks coming into the aircraft to take our temperature.

At check-in, we had been warned. Singapore Airlines had handed out notices, advising passengers that due to the H1N1 flu pandemic, Chinese officers would be boarding the aircraft to check every person’s temperature and that anyone with fever could be quarantined for up to seven days.

I didn’t think twice about it, shrugging it off as yet another inconvenience in the growing list of inconveniences of traveling these days.

But as the officers walked through the aircraft, pointing their thermal scanners at everybody’s forehead, I found myself wondering, what happens if they found someone with a fever? Would all of us be quarantined? Or would it just be the people sitting around him or her? Or would it just be the person with the fevered brow?

I looked at the boy sitting next to me. He had been sniffling the whole flight, and his nose looked red. I looked at the woman sitting across the aisle. She looked pale and skinny, and she had coughed a couple of times.

I found myself praying for their health. I am sure they were praying for mine as well.

When it came to my turn, the officer pointed a finger at my forehead. I tilted up my head like a good little girl, ready to be scanned.

He shook his head and mumbled something - it was quite hard to hear him through that plastic hood he was wearing. Then I realised that he wanted me to remove the hair from my forehead so he could have direct access to my skin. He was taking no chances.

He zapped me, looked at the scanner and walked past. Phew.

Fortunately we had a planeload of healthy passengers and after about 30 minutes of waiting for everyone to be scanned, we were let off the plane. You could hear the collective sigh of relief.

Others were not so lucky. A friend arriving on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong was delayed 90 minutes when two passengers were found to have "slightly than higher" temperatures. The two were removed by authorities, kicking and screaming.

On another flight, we heard six Australian tour operators attending the Asia Luxury Travel Mart in Shanghai were removed for quarantine because they happened to be sitting close to someone with a fever.

It all seems a bit hit-and-miss to me and I found myself wondering how long they can keep this up without scaring all travelers away. Who wants to be quarantined in a foreign country just because you happen to be unlucky enough to be sitting next to someone who has a fever?

In Singapore, precautions taken are non-intrusive. Officers sit behind a thermal scanner that is placed at a fairly discreet distance from arriving passengers at the immigration terminal.

In Malaysia, they give you health forms which they don’t even collect. I walked through immigration with the health form still inserted in my passport.

It seems to me that if WHO has declared this swine flu a pandemic, the least they can do is come up with some form of standardised procedures for the handling of air passengers.

It's the least they can do if they do not wish to stop world trade with a common cold virus.

Until then, here are some ways to beat the fever check.

1. Take Panadol before the plane lands.Ã¢â¬~¨

2. Give everybody around you Panadol.Ã¢â¬~¨

3. Airlines should hand out cold towels pre-arrival.Ã¢â¬~¨

4. Better yet, airlines should pre-screen passengers - if they have fever, don’t let them board. Ã¢â¬~¨

5. Airlines should lower the air-conditioning further in the cabin - freeze us to death, don’t let us be quarantined.

If you can think of others, do share. Together, we can beat this.

Catch Yeoh Siew Hoon every week at The Transit Cafe.