Global scare dissolves with the end of SARS

"In the summer there is less transmission than during other parts of the year," says Megan Murray, an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health in Cambridge, Mass., of flu-like viruses. "Influenza peaks in the winter and falls in the summer." Although scientists are unsure of why this may be, humidity and the length of days are possible reasons, she says.

Most travelers and residents of the Asian cities hit by the virus are putting it out of their minds. In airports from Jakarta to Hanoi, regional airlines have begun to restore canceled flights. Late last month Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific said it would resume 170 weekly flights that it had canceled in May due to the outbreak.

On Monday, United Airlines said it planned to resume flights on Aug. 1 that were halted earlier this year. It will restore daily flights to Hong Kong and Shanghai from San Francisco, and will add one flight per week from Chicago to Beijing.

That brings a smile to the face of Willie Beng who runs a store in the basement of Lucky Plaza shopping center that specializes in merchandise that can fairly be described as "Asian schlock": fake silk robes with embroidered dragons on the back, skull-caps with attached braids, and Chinese character pendants.

Mr. Beng says business was "miserable" two months ago, but that he's seen a steady stream of tourists - mostly from within Asia - in the past few weeks.

"From where I'm sitting the worst is past," he says.

The view is the same in the Gucci store a few blocks away, where a saleswomen says wealthy customers from Indonesia and Taiwan have been returning over the past month. After a brief conversation, she excuses herself to help a Japanese tourist in a cowboy hat and dangling amber earrings select a $500 wallet.

The early retail indicators are vital for cities like Singapore, where tourism generates $6 billion annually, 5 percent of its economy. The Singapore government lowered its 2003 economic growth forecast to 0.5 percent from 2.5 percent because of SARS. Over the weekend, Singapore Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang said the government has spent nearly $300 million grappling with the disease to date.

The April issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review estimated that the disease cost the region $11 billion, with Hong Kong being the hardest hit.

Wednesday, China's official news agency said that the SARS outbreak cost 7.2 million rural migrants job opportunities in cities, but the Chinese economy should still grow by 8 percent this year. A total of 348 deaths and 5,300 infections were attributed to SARS on the mainland, the most of any country worldwide.

• Teresa Méndez contributed to this report from Boston.

Of the 813 SARS-related deaths worldwide, 95 percent occurred in Asia.

China 348

Hong Kong 298

Taiwan 84

Canada 39

Singapore 32

Vietnam 5

Malaysia 2

Philippines 2

Thailand 2

South Africa 1

Total worldwide 813

Source: AP

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