What if the coronavirus, now called Covid-19, was transmitted from one person to another by going up or down through the pipes of a building? The health authorities of Hong Kong do not want to leave any suspicion aside because the semi-autonomous territory of China remains traumatized by the epidemic of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) which had just spread at high speed from one apartment to another in the many residential skyscrapers; it was in the years 2002-2003, and the disease had killed 299 Hong Kong residents, including 42 living in the same building.
A high-rise residential tower
This scary scenario is feared at Hong Mei House, a 35-story tower that towers above Tsing Yi Island, in the northwest of the city. But its residents barely had time to think about it since more than a hundred of them were evacuated suddenly, during the night of February 10 to 11. Health service agents, wearing full coveralls, immediately took over the premises to disinfect everything without delay.
It had just been confirmed that a woman in her sixties who lives on the third floor of the building was well contaminated with the new coronavirus. And it turns out that his accommodation is located exactly ten floors above that of a man previously diagnosed as also being affected. There are now 49 cases in Hong Kong.
SARS went from bathroom to bathroom
As a preventive measure, the occupants of the apartments in the tower, which are directly located below or above those of the two patients, were taken over by the doctors and quarantined for 14 days; According to the Ministry of Health, four people in the group who show symptoms have been isolated in hospital.
At the time of SARS, investigations had shown that serious viral pneumonia had contaminated people in particular by circulating from one bathroom to another through the pipes of buildings. A disaster in a megalopolis of 7 million inhabitants like Hong Kong, where a large part of the population is crowded into skyscrapers.
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