While finding a cure for Sars depends on advances in medical research, making timely decisions to contain its spread in Hong Kong is entirely in the hands of the Tung administration.

And while the economic stimulus package will help ease the pain of many businesses affected by the outbreak, broader economic revival will depend on the ability of the administration to bring back confidence by showing it can contain the disease.

Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa has pledged that the government's priority is containing the spread of the disease, but his dilly-dallying and irresolution have contributed to the failure to meet the pledge.

Almost two months after the outbreak in Hong Kong, a number of tasks are still at hand. Health workers account for one quarter of the Sars cases in Hong Kong. Six weeks after the outbreak, they were still complaining of inadequate protection. With poorly fitting masks and gowns, infections continued to rise.

Mr Tung has ordered that controlling the infection rate among heath-care workers be a top priority, but it has taken authorities nearly two months to ensure an adequate supply of protective clothing.

Following the outbreak at the Prince of Wales Hospital in early March, the administration should have been aware of the highly contagious nature of the virus.

Calls began last month for the government to list all Hong Kong buildings with infected residents - but went unheeded. For six weeks, legislators, District Board members, community workers and the media have stepped in, calling the authorities daily for an update on which buildings have Sars cases, and disseminating the information to the public.

Even by the beginning of this month, the administration was still hesitating, fearing that the information might arouse panic. By the time the names of infected housing blocks were made public on April 10, nearly 1,000 people had already fallen ill.

Sars has pushed the authorities to expedite plans to relieve the workload at public hospitals by paying for patients to be treated at private hospitals, but progress has been very slow.

Public hospitals are already bursting at the seams and treatment for non-Sars patients has been unduly delayed. Negotiations with private hospitals have gone on for some time, and it is high time to act.

While it seems common sense not to let infected travellers into Hong Kong, the authorities only decided on this measure after much dithering. Temperature checks for all passengers at Chek Lap Kok, and a joint health-check mechanism for all inbound travellers at the Lowu border, finally came into effect long after mandatory temperature checks were implemented for people leaving Hong Kong.

The economic toll is mounting, along with the human one. The four hardest-hit sectors - catering, travel agents, retail and entertainment - employ more than 500,000 people. The package announced by the administration last Wednesday will only give breathing space to small businesses badly hurt by the economic fallout.

If Sars cannot be effectively controlled, more people will be thrown out of work. The tax rebate will, at best, be a pleasant surprise, but will do little to stimulate spending by taxpayers, who will pay much more next year because of the salary tax hike. This will deal another blow to shops and small businesses, which are already facing closure. If they cannot survive the crisis, there is good reason to believe that the budgetary deficit will only get worse.

Hong Kong's pain has never been so wrenching, and the aim to eliminate the deficit by the 2006-07 financial year has to be reconsidered. Cutting government expenditure and increasing taxes to resolve the deficit problem will only make matters worse. Balancing the budget is, perhaps, the only item where less haste is needed.

Managing a crisis like Sars requires decisive action and good timing. The cost of failure is the loss of more lives. If the central government can sack health minister Zhang Wenkang and Beijing mayor Meng Xuenong over their mishandling of Sars, Mr Tung will make a mockery of the accountability system he introduced if he does not hold himself and other officials responsible.

Mr Tung's vacillation is killing Hong Kong as swiftly as the virus itself. The long list of overdue decisions should teach the administration many painful lessons, including the need to plan ahead and act before it is too late.

YEUNG SUM

Chairman of the Democratic Party and a directly elected Legislative Councillor

[South China Morning Post, April 29, 2003]