Business be damned, 16 people are dead. Mebbe it's contained, but it wasn't handled in the wisest fashion here.
In china it most certainly is a major fvck up that they AREN't telling the full story on, just like they didn't initially.
So, the local politicos can hew and cry, but if I lived anywhere else, I wouldn't make my way here, even though I have reason to be confident that the Chinese and Canadian situations are vastly different.
What I would have done was institute a 10 day general quarantine over the Easter Holiday. EVERYBODY STAYS HOME and essential workers STAY at work. That way, we would have at MOST lost 5 business days (using the easter weekend as a buffer).
After that NO Chinese immigrants/travelers without a MANDATORY quarantine period/test.
Then we have restored business and traveler confidence, but peope kept preaching the familiar don't worry, don't over-react because it's bad for business. Fine, we didn't, and now it's really bad for business and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Well, I live in part of the world where both "Ross River virus" a form of Nile fever, & severe mennigicocal outbreaks occur.
Here people have to get on with their lives regardless of the fact that virtually every second day we get people being either killed or severely maimed by the latter disease.
& that's the point...both these terrible viruses are equally contagible..but the government can't just shut the state down indefinitely.\
Do none of you understand that a 3% death rate, combined with the very very fast infection rate IS a BIG deal? For a modern day "cold" 3% death rate is HUGE.
Well, I live in part of the world where both "Ross River virus" a form of Nile fever, & severe mennigicocal outbreaks occur.
Here people have to get on with their lives regardless of the fact that virtually every second day we get people being either killed or severely maimed by the latter disease.
& that's the point...both these terrible viruses are equally contagible..but the government can't just shut the state down indefinitely.\
West Nile and other pathogens have caused huge stirs, but they haven't killed as many people as SARS has so quickly. I'm just wondering why you're in denial... SARS can incubate in a host for a week or two with very slight symptoms like a sore throat, fever, shortness of breath. In that time, a person could come in direct contact with a hundred other people. 120 deaths have been reported in China. Over a dozen deaths have been reported in Toronto. 12 people dropped dead in Hong Kong in one day last week. Hong Kong is one city, slightly larger than the NYC area.
Exactly, it is a huge deal, but people will tell themselves anything to avoid being inconvenieced. Heaven forbid the travel/tourism industry doesn't make money, or the local China tow, 'cause we all know it's more important to carry on business as usual no matter what the potential draw backs.
Do none of you understand that a 3% death rate, combined with the very very fast infection rate IS a BIG deal? For a modern day "cold" 3% death rate is HUGE.
Color me highly skeptical. It has a "very very fast infection rate" yet in the almost six months it's been in Hong Kong it's managed to infect only a few hundred people? Even when for most of that time no precautions were in place? And of those few hundred only 16 have died? That's still way, way less than "regular" influenza has killed in Hong Kong in the same time period.
As for the virus that "causes" SARS, there was an article in the Times today reporting on a study in Winnepeg testing victims for that coronavirus. 35-40% of "probable" and "suspected" cases tested positive. So did 20% of "unlikely" cases. Apparently (inexplicably?) they failed to include unaffected controls. Reagrdless, those numbers are less than striking. I still find it, erm, "suspect" whether SARS really exists as a discrete disease.
Where were you when China was being criticized for totally lying about the supposed SARS cases about a week ago? Do a little research before you pull your dick out of your pants.
Color me highly skeptical. It has a "very very fast infection rate" yet in the almost six months it's been in Hong Kong it's managed to infect only a few hundred people? Even when for most of that time no precautions were in place? And of those few hundred only 16 have died? That's still way, way less than "regular" influenza has killed in Hong Kong in the same time period.
What in damnation are you taking about? The very first case of SARS ever was reported in November last year, and it wasn't in Hong Kong. Since then, thousands have been infected and hundreds have died.
Yes, in less than six months, hundreds of people have died, and it's only begun to spread. I don't doubt the damage can be minimized in developed areas like HK, the US, Canada, etc., but what about India and Africa?
HIV/AIDS isn't nearly as easy to contract and 1 in 5 people in various African countries are dying of it. It's not like SARS is going to go away if you ignore it.
Gosh, imagine if several hundred people had died of AIDS 6 months after the very first case was reported.
Color me highly skeptical. It has a "very very fast infection rate" yet in the almost six months it's been in Hong Kong it's managed to infect only a few hundred people? Even when for most of that time no precautions were in place? And of those few hundred only 16 have died? That's still way, way less than "regular" influenza has killed in Hong Kong in the same time period.
As for the virus that "causes" SARS, there was an article in the Times today reporting on a study in Winnepeg testing victims for that coronavirus. 35-40% of "probable" and "suspected" cases tested positive. So did 20% of "unlikely" cases. Apparently (inexplicably?) they failed to include unaffected controls. Reagrdless, those numbers are less than striking. I still find it, erm, "suspect" whether SARS really exists as a discrete disease.
tats a very naive thought. I do not want to curse USA, but once SARS reachs your shore, u will know how frightening the disease will be.
Its not the death rate, but its high infection rate that makes SARS scary. Once people know u have SARS, they will avoid u like a plague.
Do none of you understand that a 3% death rate, combined with the very very fast infection rate IS a BIG deal? For a modern day "cold" 3% death rate is HUGE.
Yeah & malaria is a 40% death rate
& Aids is a 97% death rate..
In particular African nations are being systematically wiped off the face of the earth because of Aids & Malaria, but the International community tut tuts & gives lip service to real desperate needs for effective treatments..all too much trouble & it costs too much
So it's fashionable in TO/Canada to jump all over the WHO to protect that tourist dollar, but is it right? There at least 40 cases in the US, T.O. to NY, T.O to San Fran? Mebbe, more likely than both is Hong Kong to NY and HK to SF, just like it was a case of HK to TO. The point is that for something that's supposedly under control, it's covered quite a wide geography in a short time.
Yes the Chinese kept it quiet for as much as 2 years, but we also know that the disease mutates and it could be that while it was as deadly way back as today (about 3% death rate) it has recently become more infectious due to some mutation.
Now the CDC doesn't want to be over-reactionary about Toronto, but they know that cases in the US are just before their take of point, and if they make to much noise about T.O. they won't be able to calm tourist fears in two very big markets (NY and SF) should the number of SARS case swell.
The WHO, OTOH, doesn't care about anybody's tourist dollar, they were warned LATE by the Chinese, and issued travel advisories when they learned about the concentration of cases in TO, just as they would have much earlier if they had learned about HK earlier.
A little inconvenience isn't such a big price to pay.
In particular African nations are being systematically wiped off the face of the earth because of Aids & Malaria, but the International community tut tuts & gives lip service to real desperate needs for effective treatments..all too much trouble & it costs too much
Not. Malaria is treatable, first of all, and 40% is way off. There are currently know known treatments for SARS. No antibiotics, nothing. Besides, Malaria is so old, the people who live in areas with a high-threat are usually immune...Don't they teach you guys about the relationship between Sickle Hemoglobin and Malaria these days?
Second, if 1 in 4 people in Botswana have contracted AIDS, how many people do you think could contract SARS there?
SARS isn't airborne, per sé, but it does easily hop from person to person via close contact. Some guy coughs on his hand, touches a faucet handle in a public restroom, other people use the faucet...you get the picture. And things like centralized A/C certainly don't help. You don't get malaria by merely touching somebody who has it. You basically have to be in a region of the world full of malarian carrying mosquitoes. And in general, healthy people survive with proper treatment.
From your link:
"Malaria causes or contributes to 3 million deaths and up to 500 million acute clinical cases each year." I thought you said 40%. Gosh, you aren't just making shit up, are you?
tats a very naive thought. I do not want to curse USA, but once SARS reachs your shore, u will know how frightening the disease will be.
Its not the death rate, but its high infection rate that makes SARS scary. Once people know u have SARS, they will avoid u like a plague.
There are about 40 "cases" of SARS in the US. None have died. The number of cases has remained stable for several weeks now, suggesting that it is not spreading here. The lack of any fatalities here will hopefully raise some questions about the efficiency of the Canadian health services.
IMNSHO, we have not come close yet to disproving the null hypothesis that SARS is merely a collection of atypical pneumonias. The "disease" seems to behave remarkably different in different people, the evidence that the coronavirus causes it is flimsy at best, and the case definition is still maddenly vague. SARS is basically defined as pneumonia or flu in anyone who's had any contact with anyone from South Asia. The latter group comprises several billion people. A lot of those several billion people have caught flus or pneumonias in the last few months. Many of them will die of it. Is it something to hyperventilate about? I doubt it. This SARS scare, moreover, is rapidly reaching the point where the economic damage from public panic and efforts at disease containment are causing more pain, suffering, and (indeed) deaths than the disease itself. Trashing the economy of Southern China will kill far, far more people than even a mildly virulent atypical pneuomia.
In Botswana, they can die in massive numbers from acute respiratory infections just fine without SARS.
In fact, in Africa there is a highly virulent, highly contagious disease which spreads through the air at an astounding rate. It can sweep through villages in a matter of days. It infects 11 million Africans a year, and it kills 5% of all the people it infects. Half a million dead, every year. 30,000 new cases every day, 1500 deaths every day. It's...[drumroll]
I hate to post three times in a row, but there are some more public-health misconceptions I have to clear up:
Quote:
HIV/AIDS isn't nearly as easy to contract and 1 in 5 people in various African countries are dying of it.
AIDS is so particularly dangerous because it's a chronic disease with an extremely long latency period and near-100% mortality. Almost no one recovers from AIDS. Cases therefore accumulate, since once you acquire the disease you have it. For life. Being not-so-easy to contract doesn't matter when you can't get rid of it. Viral pneumonias are quite different.
Quote:
Besides, Malaria is so old, the people who live in areas with a high-threat are usually immune...Don't they teach you guys about the relationship between Sickle Hemoglobin and Malaria these days?
There several things really wrong about this. First, most people who live in malaria-endemic regions are reasonably immune only because they're had it and survived. Which ignores the fact that many other people had it (typically when very young) and didn't survive. Second, sickle-cell trait is not absolute protection from malaria, and, by the way, maintaining it in the population means that one-quarter of your population has Sickle-cell disease. Not happy. Finally, immunity against malaria, even if you have sickle-cell trait and have survived the disease, is relative. The parasite is difficuclt to eradicate from the body, even with the most modern medical treatments. Survivors often experience crippling recurrences, and even a fresh sub-acute bout surely does no good things for your happiness and your economic productivity.
Quote:
SARS is so deadly, rah rah rah
Keep in mind that since we don't know what SARS is (even if it is) we can't have an accurate count of SARS cases. If it's like most pneumonias, there are going to be many sub-actue and even sub-clinical cases for every case that presents to the hospital. Since the case definition basically excludes non-severe cases, the death rate is very likely to be vastly overestimated.
Comments
Except it's on the wrong end of the cat !
Business be damned, 16 people are dead. Mebbe it's contained, but it wasn't handled in the wisest fashion here.
In china it most certainly is a major fvck up that they AREN't telling the full story on, just like they didn't initially.
So, the local politicos can hew and cry, but if I lived anywhere else, I wouldn't make my way here, even though I have reason to be confident that the Chinese and Canadian situations are vastly different.
What I would have done was institute a 10 day general quarantine over the Easter Holiday. EVERYBODY STAYS HOME and essential workers STAY at work. That way, we would have at MOST lost 5 business days (using the easter weekend as a buffer).
After that NO Chinese immigrants/travelers without a MANDATORY quarantine period/test.
Then we have restored business and traveler confidence, but peope kept preaching the familiar don't worry, don't over-react because it's bad for business. Fine, we didn't, and now it's really bad for business and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
STAY AWAY!
Here people have to get on with their lives regardless of the fact that virtually every second day we get people being either killed or severely maimed by the latter disease.
& that's the point...both these terrible viruses are equally contagible..but the government can't just shut the state down indefinitely.
Originally posted by aquafire
Well, I live in part of the world where both "Ross River virus" a form of Nile fever, & severe mennigicocal outbreaks occur.
Here people have to get on with their lives regardless of the fact that virtually every second day we get people being either killed or severely maimed by the latter disease.
& that's the point...both these terrible viruses are equally contagible..but the government can't just shut the state down indefinitely.
West Nile and other pathogens have caused huge stirs, but they haven't killed as many people as SARS has so quickly. I'm just wondering why you're in denial... SARS can incubate in a host for a week or two with very slight symptoms like a sore throat, fever, shortness of breath. In that time, a person could come in direct contact with a hundred other people. 120 deaths have been reported in China. Over a dozen deaths have been reported in Toronto. 12 people dropped dead in Hong Kong in one day last week. Hong Kong is one city, slightly larger than the NYC area.
Originally posted by Logan
Do none of you understand that a 3% death rate, combined with the very very fast infection rate IS a BIG deal? For a modern day "cold" 3% death rate is HUGE.
Color me highly skeptical. It has a "very very fast infection rate" yet in the almost six months it's been in Hong Kong it's managed to infect only a few hundred people? Even when for most of that time no precautions were in place? And of those few hundred only 16 have died? That's still way, way less than "regular" influenza has killed in Hong Kong in the same time period.
As for the virus that "causes" SARS, there was an article in the Times today reporting on a study in Winnepeg testing victims for that coronavirus. 35-40% of "probable" and "suspected" cases tested positive. So did 20% of "unlikely" cases. Apparently (inexplicably?) they failed to include unaffected controls. Reagrdless, those numbers are less than striking. I still find it, erm, "suspect" whether SARS really exists as a discrete disease.
Originally posted by Towel
Color me highly skeptical. It has a "very very fast infection rate" yet in the almost six months it's been in Hong Kong it's managed to infect only a few hundred people? Even when for most of that time no precautions were in place? And of those few hundred only 16 have died? That's still way, way less than "regular" influenza has killed in Hong Kong in the same time period.
What in damnation are you taking about? The very first case of SARS ever was reported in November last year, and it wasn't in Hong Kong. Since then, thousands have been infected and hundreds have died.
Yes, in less than six months, hundreds of people have died, and it's only begun to spread. I don't doubt the damage can be minimized in developed areas like HK, the US, Canada, etc., but what about India and Africa?
HIV/AIDS isn't nearly as easy to contract and 1 in 5 people in various African countries are dying of it. It's not like SARS is going to go away if you ignore it.
Gosh, imagine if several hundred people had died of AIDS 6 months after the very first case was reported.
Originally posted by Towel
Color me highly skeptical. It has a "very very fast infection rate" yet in the almost six months it's been in Hong Kong it's managed to infect only a few hundred people? Even when for most of that time no precautions were in place? And of those few hundred only 16 have died? That's still way, way less than "regular" influenza has killed in Hong Kong in the same time period.
As for the virus that "causes" SARS, there was an article in the Times today reporting on a study in Winnepeg testing victims for that coronavirus. 35-40% of "probable" and "suspected" cases tested positive. So did 20% of "unlikely" cases. Apparently (inexplicably?) they failed to include unaffected controls. Reagrdless, those numbers are less than striking. I still find it, erm, "suspect" whether SARS really exists as a discrete disease.
tats a very naive thought. I do not want to curse USA, but once SARS reachs your shore, u will know how frightening the disease will be.
Its not the death rate, but its high infection rate that makes SARS scary. Once people know u have SARS, they will avoid u like a plague.
Originally posted by Logan
Do none of you understand that a 3% death rate, combined with the very very fast infection rate IS a BIG deal? For a modern day "cold" 3% death rate is HUGE.
Yeah & malaria is a 40% death rate
& Aids is a 97% death rate..
In particular African nations are being systematically wiped off the face of the earth because of Aids & Malaria, but the International community tut tuts & gives lip service to real desperate needs for effective treatments..all too much trouble & it costs too much
Originally posted by aquafire
Yeah & malaria is a 40% death rate
& Aids is a 97% death rate..
& Death is a 100% death rate
And how do Malaria, aids (and death) infect? By air? If that was the case there would not be that many people on the earth today.
Air doesn't kill in SARS either.
As to Malaria..it's much more insidious..
it ( like AIDS ) kills by poverty & lack of education & funds.
I know you probably know this stuff..so for others...
go to...
http://www.malaria.org
Yes the Chinese kept it quiet for as much as 2 years, but we also know that the disease mutates and it could be that while it was as deadly way back as today (about 3% death rate) it has recently become more infectious due to some mutation.
Now the CDC doesn't want to be over-reactionary about Toronto, but they know that cases in the US are just before their take of point, and if they make to much noise about T.O. they won't be able to calm tourist fears in two very big markets (NY and SF) should the number of SARS case swell.
The WHO, OTOH, doesn't care about anybody's tourist dollar, they were warned LATE by the Chinese, and issued travel advisories when they learned about the concentration of cases in TO, just as they would have much earlier if they had learned about HK earlier.
A little inconvenience isn't such a big price to pay.
Originally posted by aquafire
Yeah & malaria is a 40% death rate
& Aids is a 97% death rate..
In particular African nations are being systematically wiped off the face of the earth because of Aids & Malaria, but the International community tut tuts & gives lip service to real desperate needs for effective treatments..all too much trouble & it costs too much
Not. Malaria is treatable, first of all, and 40% is way off. There are currently know known treatments for SARS. No antibiotics, nothing. Besides, Malaria is so old, the people who live in areas with a high-threat are usually immune...Don't they teach you guys about the relationship between Sickle Hemoglobin and Malaria these days?
Second, if 1 in 4 people in Botswana have contracted AIDS, how many people do you think could contract SARS there?
Originally posted by aquafire
Air ?
Air doesn't kill in SARS either.
As to Malaria..it's much more insidious..
it ( like AIDS ) kills by poverty & lack of education & funds.
I know you probably know this stuff..so for others...
go to...
http://www.malaria.org
SARS isn't airborne, per sé, but it does easily hop from person to person via close contact. Some guy coughs on his hand, touches a faucet handle in a public restroom, other people use the faucet...you get the picture. And things like centralized A/C certainly don't help. You don't get malaria by merely touching somebody who has it. You basically have to be in a region of the world full of malarian carrying mosquitoes. And in general, healthy people survive with proper treatment.
From your link:
"Malaria causes or contributes to 3 million deaths and up to 500 million acute clinical cases each year." I thought you said 40%. Gosh, you aren't just making shit up, are you?
& to really stuff things up I posted the wrong link........
The percentage I "recalled" was cerebral malaria @ that ranged above 45% deaths ....so speed reading F--cked me up Ok !
let me wait til you trip up over your sources..I'll be watching like a hawk
http:www.allafrica.com/stories/200205200047.html
Originally posted by stunned
tats a very naive thought. I do not want to curse USA, but once SARS reachs your shore, u will know how frightening the disease will be.
Its not the death rate, but its high infection rate that makes SARS scary. Once people know u have SARS, they will avoid u like a plague.
There are about 40 "cases" of SARS in the US. None have died. The number of cases has remained stable for several weeks now, suggesting that it is not spreading here. The lack of any fatalities here will hopefully raise some questions about the efficiency of the Canadian health services.
IMNSHO, we have not come close yet to disproving the null hypothesis that SARS is merely a collection of atypical pneumonias. The "disease" seems to behave remarkably different in different people, the evidence that the coronavirus causes it is flimsy at best, and the case definition is still maddenly vague. SARS is basically defined as pneumonia or flu in anyone who's had any contact with anyone from South Asia. The latter group comprises several billion people. A lot of those several billion people have caught flus or pneumonias in the last few months. Many of them will die of it. Is it something to hyperventilate about? I doubt it. This SARS scare, moreover, is rapidly reaching the point where the economic damage from public panic and efforts at disease containment are causing more pain, suffering, and (indeed) deaths than the disease itself. Trashing the economy of Southern China will kill far, far more people than even a mildly virulent atypical pneuomia.
"Of the 75 million children under five in Africa a million and a half die each year of pneumonia"
In Botswana, they can die in massive numbers from acute respiratory infections just fine without SARS.
In fact, in Africa there is a highly virulent, highly contagious disease which spreads through the air at an astounding rate. It can sweep through villages in a matter of days. It infects 11 million Africans a year, and it kills 5% of all the people it infects. Half a million dead, every year. 30,000 new cases every day, 1500 deaths every day. It's...[drumroll]
....
[/drumroll]
...Measles.
HIV/AIDS isn't nearly as easy to contract and 1 in 5 people in various African countries are dying of it.
AIDS is so particularly dangerous because it's a chronic disease with an extremely long latency period and near-100% mortality. Almost no one recovers from AIDS. Cases therefore accumulate, since once you acquire the disease you have it. For life. Being not-so-easy to contract doesn't matter when you can't get rid of it. Viral pneumonias are quite different.
Besides, Malaria is so old, the people who live in areas with a high-threat are usually immune...Don't they teach you guys about the relationship between Sickle Hemoglobin and Malaria these days?
There several things really wrong about this. First, most people who live in malaria-endemic regions are reasonably immune only because they're had it and survived. Which ignores the fact that many other people had it (typically when very young) and didn't survive. Second, sickle-cell trait is not absolute protection from malaria, and, by the way, maintaining it in the population means that one-quarter of your population has Sickle-cell disease. Not happy. Finally, immunity against malaria, even if you have sickle-cell trait and have survived the disease, is relative. The parasite is difficuclt to eradicate from the body, even with the most modern medical treatments. Survivors often experience crippling recurrences, and even a fresh sub-acute bout surely does no good things for your happiness and your economic productivity.
SARS is so deadly, rah rah rah
Keep in mind that since we don't know what SARS is (even if it is) we can't have an accurate count of SARS cases. If it's like most pneumonias, there are going to be many sub-actue and even sub-clinical cases for every case that presents to the hospital. Since the case definition basically excludes non-severe cases, the death rate is very likely to be vastly overestimated.