Answer (a) — incorrect: Symptoms of the disease are not indicative of food or water poisoning, or of intestinal disease. Additionally, if the disease were transmitted via food or water, we would anticipate that the majority of the Amoy Apartment Complex residents would have fallen ill subsequent to the luau.

Answer (b) — correct: All cases occurred close in time-- shortly after each of the cases attended the luau where they were in close contact with one another for several hours.

Answer (c) — incorrect: Only 66 of the 600 residents at the Amoy Apartment Complex fell ill with SARS. It is unlikely that these 66 persons all came in contact with cockroaches within such a short time period unless the apartment complex was really infested, which was not the case.