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Webcams to Enforce Singapore Quarantine
magarity writes "Singapore has hired a private security firm to install internet connected webcams in homes of persons quarantined for SARS in order to watch them to see if they go out. They are considering adding electronic wristbands as well. 9 of the 490 persons have broken the quarantine despite a fine of 10,000 singapore dollars ($5,621US). Just over 100 people worldwide have died from SARS so far."
Before you start on about 1984, this is happening in Singapore, not the US.
And to head off the inevitable Ashcroft / Patriot Act recriminations, please offer actual *proof* of claims that our civil liberties are being eroded.
hey dickhead - if it truly has a 4% mortality rate, that will kill 1/25 people.
thats at least one student in a highschool class.
at least one person in your extended family.
it does need to be quarantined, or we are all fscked.
... hi bingo
It's only 4% because people are acting quickly to try and stop it from spreading. I live and work around Toronto (which is one of the places where SARS has shown up with a vengence in Canada), and believe me, it's a big freakin' deal. I had to go the doctor for treatment of strep throat and there was a form I had to fill out about SARS and every medical person there had a filter mask on and wouldn't go NEAR you until they determined you weren't a SARS risk.
Like some others have said, how would YOU feel if someone you knew was one of those 4%. I think your knee would jerk pretty high.
The 4% mortality rate is before all of the hospitals are full and before the world's supply of available respirators is exhausted. If 1,000,000 people in one country catch this, things could be different.
I'm just hoping that this virus mellows out a little bit as it goes through multiple generations in humans, as some viruses have been known to do. That might be the only way it will slow down.
This would mean, for example, that in a few years we may have airborne varient strains of other viruses. Now, should an airborne strain of some slow infection cycle be created (like HIV/AIDS, or a pneumonia with a very slow cycle), then most of the world will be infected before the first casualty occurs. Obviously this is fatal situation for mankind. It's not the quick diseases like ebola that we have to fear, it's the slow ones.
Hope it doesn't happen, but with population densities growing I expect that it will.
Comments?
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
...which killed upwards of 20 MILLION people, had a mortality rate of 3%.
SARS seems to be *at least* as transmissible as the 1918 flu was.
That's why.
Yes, it is that bad. Malaria isn't contagious. If SARS isn't contained, then a lot more than a million people could die. Consider what could happen if SARS spread to Africa, where a significant percentage of the population is infected with an immune-suppressing virus (HIV).
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Part of the problem is out over-reliance on anti-bacterial soaps|sponges|cuttingboard|etc.
The more we 'sanitize' our society the more susceptible we all are when a big bad bug comes along. Personally, I keep myself clean and all, but I will not use anti-bacterial products, with the excpetions of neosporin when I cut myself. The minute amounts of bactieria, firuses, molds, etc that I probably ingest build my immune system.
Its not a statistically good sampling, but of my friends that are anti-bacterial everything, and my friends that are more like me. The ones that dont use anti-bacterial products tend to get sick less often, and are sick for shorter durations than the people I know that are nuts about anti-bacterial products.
So I think we need to watch out for these sanitary guidelines - too much is a bad thing.