ShareThisThere are 12 yards that Kevin Ireland knows all too well. It's the length of his hallway on the 11th floor in the Metropark hotel in downtown Hong Kong, the building where he and some 305 others have been quarantined since another guest there was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus on Friday.
"It's boring, it's dull. The windows on the non-smoking floors don't open, so there's no fresh air. That's getting to us," the 45-year-old Indian national said of life in four-star quarantine.
Ireland, a clothing merchant, was supposed to be on a flight back to his native New Delhi Monday, but he and the other guests have been told that they won't be allowed to leave the hotel until at least Friday for fear they came into contact with a Mexican man who briefly checked into the Metropark last week before being diagnosed with the virus formerly known as swine flu.
It's big excitement at the Metropark when someone gets a phone call from the outside world. Or when guests are allowed to get pizza delivered -- carefully handed across the quarantine line to police officers in protective suits.
At least the guests at the Metropark know why they have been quarantined. Though the Hong Kong case remains the only confirmed instance of H1N1 in China, hundreds of people around the country were kept in quarantine over the weekend due to H1N1-flu fears, including dozens of Mexican citizens who were apparently deemed suspicious solely because of their passports.
Most of those under quarantine were either guests at the Metropark, or airline passengers who had shared one of two flights the 25-year-old flu victim took before he was diagnosed. Despite the dragnet, a China-wide hunt was under way for dozens of people who were suspected of having come into contact with the flu patient.
More controversially, the Mexican embassy in Beijing said more than 50 Mexican business people and tourists had been involuntarily quarantined despite showing no flu symptoms at all. According to media reports, some were removed from their hotel rooms and escorted to hospitals in the middle of the night.
Among those detained was Mexico's consul-general in Guangzhou, who was briefly held for medical checks upon returning to the country from a vacation in Cambodia.
Flights between Mexico City and Shanghai -- the route the 25-year-old flu victim flew before transferring onwards to Hong Kong -- were suspended indefinitely. The measures set off a diplomatic row between Beijing and Mexico, which warned its citizens to avoid travel to China for the near future.
"Mexican citizens showing no signs at all of being ill have been isolated under unacceptable conditions," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said. "These are discriminatory measures, without foundation."
Inside the Metropark hotel, many feel badly treated, and those inside say tempers have boiled over on more than one occasion since the lockdown began. But Ireland, for one, says he sympathizes with the steps the government has taken, even if he's among those caught on the wrong side of the line.
"The government would prefer to inconvenience 200 or 300 people than risk infecting the whole population. It is highly inconvenient for us, but I think if I was on the other side of the fence, I'd do the same."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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