Bad enough: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrom, the mystery illness from Asia that's sickened over 2,200 and killed at least 78. Worse: False stories on and offline about the illness that send even more fears out. How to stop the panic? Hong Kong's authorities opened a can of spam, sending blanket text to some six million cell phones denying it was an "infected city."
"We wanted to get our message out as quickly as possible to allay fears," Terence Yu, a spokesman for the Commerce, Information and Technology Bureau, told News.com.au. Over 700 have fallen ill from the disease in Hong Kong, including 16 deaths, but officials said false rumors make a bad situation worse. So, they set a kind of precedent, though there's no indication yet how many cell phone recipients simply deleted their messages as they might other incoming spam.
