Tourism

“Japan and China are very lucrative travel markets that Nevada needs to enhance,” said Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, who also chairs the Nevada Commission on Tourism. The quote comes from a faxed press release that arrived just shortly after another such press release—this one from the Washoe County Health Department regarding severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

“Specific areas of concern are mainland China, Hong Kong …”

The Health Department seeks to remind people that such common symptoms as fever and cough do not a SARS case make.

“If you have not traveled to the affected areas or have not had contact with a SARS case, do not be concerned that you may have SARS.”

Are people really this paranoid about a virus that seems, so far, pretty contained and not terribly dangerous to Nevadans who aren’t bent on pitching tourism to the Far East?

Consider this remark overheard at Lawlor Events Center on Easter Sunday. A woman walking up the steps to attend a large nondenominational church service there dodged several friendly ushers who were determined to shake her hand.

“I don’t want to shake any hands,” the woman explained to her friend. “There are just so many diseases going around.”