surfal666: creeping death [In The News]

FRC (

surfal666) wrote,
@ 2003-04-03 11:27:00

creeping death [In The News]

Via Phil Ringnalda - SARSWatch.org.

Here's a nice quote for those who think that this isn't that big a deal:

Up to now, SARS has had a fatality rate of about 3.5 percent. If that sounds mild compared, say, to the virus that causes AIDS, consider this: The pandemic flu of 1918 killed "only" about 2.5 percent of those whom it infected. That amounted to 50 million people worldwide.

So, how's that cough?

[cloned from Diary Of A Madman]

(7 comments) - (Post a new comment)

	anniesj 2003-04-03 08:31 am UTC (link)
	I think I'm going to go hide under my bed now. ::puts on surgical mask:: (Reply to this)

	sabinablue 2003-04-03 08:37 am UTC (link)
	I wondered about that. My grandmother used to tell me stories about people dropping dead left and right during The Plague. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	surfal666 2003-04-03 08:43 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, and by the information currently known, this spreads much more efficiently than the pandemic flu did. I really do expect the kill rates to jump to 5% or more if this makes it to central Europe or Africa. Or the West Coast. (Reply to this) (Parent)

surfal666
2003-04-03 08:47 am UTC (link)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/04/01/sars.plane/

"Santa Clara County has seven other suspected SARS cases, but only one person is hospitalized. The other people were isolated at their homes for 10 days, Smith said, adding there is no laboratory test to confirm the illness."

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/31/hksars030331

"If isolation is effective to control the spread of the disease, we can say this decision came too late," he said. "And who can say for sure who should be isolated?"

Over the weekend, 58 of the 105 new SARS cases reported in Hong Kong were found in Block E of the Amoy Gardens complex.

Of the 213 people in the complex with SARS, 107 live in Block E, the World Health Organization said Monday.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	California? sabinablue 2003-04-03 09:03 am UTC (link)
	It's much, much closer to home, baby. Bucks County Couple Won't Let SARS Stop Adoption ::shakes head:: (Reply to this) (Parent)

ludickid
2003-04-03 09:03 am UTC (link)

Well, it's one thing to think it's a big deal -- it is a big deal. But it's quite another thing to panic over it. The low fatality rate was operant in 1918, too, sure: but keep in mind that 1918 was a war year, medical care was at a premium, and the state of medical technology as well as the amount of research done on communicable diseases was pitiful compared to today.

The disease has a low fatality rate, it's seemingly got a low degree of communicability, it has a moderate lifespan in terms of contraction to fatality, which limits its virulence (diseases that kill quickly like ebola are the least likely to spread very far, while diseases that kill slowly like tuberculosis are the most likely), and the number of deaths is still quite low.

It's something we should all pay attention to, and be sensible about. But it's not something we should freak out about.

(Reply to this)

The 1918 Pandemic...

tssandwich
2003-04-04 04:49 am UTC (link)

actually was worse than instant mortality numbers would indicate. A great number of survivors of the 'flu epidemic came down with Parkinson's-like symptoms a few years later as a result of the virus. (See Oliver Sacks' book "Awakenings) My great-grandfather was one of them-- he survived the flu ok only to be completely infirm from Parkinson's about a dozen years later. He died 17 years after the epidemic, by which point he was so shaky, he required full-time nursing care. (IIRC, he was in his late 60's)

(Reply to this)

(7 comments) - (Post a new comment)

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