Hong Kong reported four new SARS cases and three more deaths yesterday.

Business leaders worry the masks are further tarnishing Hong Kong's image, which has been hard hit by severe acute respiratory syndrome.

"You can't see our smile when we put the masks on," said James Lu, executive director of the Hong Kong Hotels Association, whose members have seen business collapse amid the SARS outbreak. "As soon as SARS is over, we'd like to have burn-the-masks day," he said.

Health officials say there is no reason for Hong Kong people to wear surgical masks as they go about their daily routines, but hundreds of thousands have been doing so since the SARS outbreak in March.

SARS has infected 1,678 people in Hong Kong and killed 215, but the number of new daily infections has dropped into the single digits over the past week.

Meanwhile, warmer weather in subtropical Hong Kong has made the masks more uncomfortable in recent days, and fewer people seem to be wearing them.

There were far more visible faces than masked ones yesterday in Hong Kong Park, but people riding buses were mostly masked.

Some had let their masks slip to the point that they just hugged the chin, with temperatures in Hong Kong rising as high as 29 degrees Celsius by midday yesterday.

But many say the masks make them feel safer, or at least psychologically better.

"My head gets very hot when I wear a mask," said 35-year-old waitress Angel Mok, who's worn one for almost two months.

"But I think it's safer to put it on until the day when we have zero infections."

Others say the masks should go.

"We should stop wearing them - the numbers of people getting sick have been low," said Chan Tat-yuen, whose employers at the Ying Kee Tea Co are required to wear masks on the job.

SARS fears closed down Hong Kong's public schools for weeks, and those that have reopened require students and teachers to wear masks. Officials also require daily temperature checks of everybody in the schools.

Math instructor Leung Yiu-chung said that if nobody in the classroom is sick, there's no point in the masks. They make life uncomfortable for teachers who have to talk for hours, and many students have been drifting off to sleep behind their stuffy masks.

"It's hot," said Leung, who also serves as a lawmaker.

Computer student Raymond Cheung, who now needs a mask to enter the university library, said it's time to change the rules.

"It doesn't mean that we are absolutely safe even if we put one on," Cheung said.

Hong Kong's Health Department says people with respiratory symptoms should wear masks to prevent spreading germs, and health-care workers must wear masks and take other stringent precautions against SARS.

Masks can help stop the disease from spreading through droplets from sneezing and coughing, experts say.

But global health officials say there's no real need for people to put on masks everywhere they go - from restaurants to the seaside - as many Hong Kongers have been doing for weeks. Some used masks turn up as litter on city streets and on Hong Kong's rural mountain trails and beaches.

Washing hands is a more important precaution, WHO says.

(eastday.com May 12, 2003)