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of rumours, pushing the panic to an even higher level. because of its psychological
effect, a disease outbreak often acts as a multiplier factor on social stability. During
the plague outbreak in Surat, India, in 1994, for instance, the fear of an epidemic
was so intense among the city residents that within four days, one quarter of the
population fled the city (World Resources Institute 1996). While only 56 people
died nationwide, the outbreak and mass exodus generated considerable anxiety
throughout India and the world, with the fear that plague might be transported far
and wide by Surat refugees.
Historical cases also suggest that the fear factor associated with a pandemic can
be as potent and destructive as the virus itself. During the bubonic plague, Jews
were commonly accused of spreading the disease and therefore subject to mass
killings as a part of the hysteria (Hays 1998, 50). During the SarS outbreak,
disease-associated stigma and discrimination were reported in countries including
china, canada, and the United States. according to a survey conducted during the
outbreak by the Harvard School of Public Health, 16 percent of americans avoided
people whom they thought might have recently travelled to asia, while 14 percent
shunned Asian restaurants and stores (Stein 2003). This problem may be amplified
in a future pandemic, because people will be advised to minimise, if not avoid, social
interactions. as the pandemic becomes part of a national lexicon, rumour, suspicion,
and misinformation could lead to profiling and discrimination against people from
or associated with the affected regions. If asia turns out to be the epicentre of the
next pandemic, it is likely that every immigrant or visitor from the region will be
viewed as a typhoid Mary. Government measures such as forced quarantine will
only reinforce the vicious cycle of discrimination against this group, who will be
perceived as diseased or dangerous. Such xenophobia and racism could be used by
the politically ambitious to influence election outcomes. While the potential dangers
in this scenario should not be exaggerated, the 2002 presidential election in France
highlights the danger of such an issue being exploited by political extremists to
challenge the foundation of a liberal democracy (Huang 2003).
the psychological impact and changing social pattern will increase the likelihood
of lawlessness and violence by fostering more intense rivalries between different
ethnic and religious groups, between the socially privileged and the marginalised,
and between state and society. Pandemic-induced mass unemployment and rising
income inequality could bring to the surface long-standing grievances of haves
against have-nots and intensify the conflicts between different classes and groups.
the bubonic plague, for example, increased the tensions between the rich and poor
in europe, leading to peasant riots in england, France, belgium, and Italy (Hays
1998). In the meantime, the pandemic may be so overwhelming that people with
shortened time horizons could engage in all kinds of risky behaviour (such as crimes
and riots). as documented by thucydides, the plague of Athens in the fifth century
bc triggered 'a state of unprecedented lawlessness' because 'men, not knowing
what would happen next to them, became indifferent to every rule of religion or law'
(thucydides 1952, 155). Protests and riots also occurred in china during the SarS
outbreak. In late april 2003, thousands of residents of a rural town near tianjin
