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SARS and the Internet
AndroidCat writes "In this story scientists who cracked SARS' genetic code credit the Internet as a key: 'The Internet has had a profound impact on how this data has been shared and how scientists have collaborated.' The Internet has also been useful in containing the outbreak by facilitating online discussion by ER doctors. Not mentioned in the stories is that Toronto researchers who were in quarantine were able to stay in touch. Slashdot has also covered Distributed Computing Attacking SARS. Go Internet!"
Speaking of SARS, check this out.
I often here friends and collegues disgusted by the Internet, or simply bored by it. There's nothing to do on it they claim except play some games, check a few popular web sites, instant message, etc. I always claim to them that the Internet still finds a tremendous use in the research community, stories like this confirm my findings. The Internet is only as limited as your imagination I guess. If you have an interest in anything academic, the Internet can certainly help you stray abreast of the major topics and discussions in a timely matter.
Does this mean Dan Quayle will get credit for it?
When the telephone first came into widespread use did newspapers write articles about how the phone helped this or facilitated that?
What I'm really asking is why is this news? The Internet, designed for communication, has helped people communicate. I don't see this as a huge breakthrough.
It is a shame that though a large number of the Internet community will altruistically join the fight against SARS, voluteering thier computer's processing power and the electricity used to keep it running, while the likely (pecuniary) beneficiary will be a giant biotechnology firm, which will quickly patent any findings that are uncovered by the distributed computing program.
Since you volunteer your computer, I would bet that this fact does not need to be stated in any EULA.
They did a special issue back in the '90s, which was essentially a theoretical copy of Wired from about 20-ish years in the future. At any rate, one of the stories was about how mankind was almost wiped out by this horrific plague...which originated in China, interestingly enough...and the massive social change that resulted from it. There were two keys to developing a cure, in the story, one of them being that we'd cracked the human genome, which gave us an edge on understanding the virus' interaction with our DNA. The other key was the internet, because it allowed the remaining surviving researchers to collaboarate without physical proximity or risk of contagion. You see, most of the medical research community had been wiped out when they gathered for an emergency global conference...the disease was horrifically contagious. I wish I still had a copy of that issue, it was amazing.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Yep. Figured I was alone.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Let me report the situation in Hong Kong. Perhaps this is the first regional economic hub to be affected, and well, it got hit pretty hard.
The tourism industry is down by 70%, restaurants, bars and popular entertainment spots, well, empty as people are staying at home.
However, there are industries that are surfing tidal waves that's sweeping the economy; and Internet has been one of them.
I just called the sales manager of our service provider, and business has never been so good in years! This is due to companies that's cancelling their business trips and meetings, conferences, etc has to be done online. Phones have been ringing non-stop, with queries from companies to speed up and upgrade their internet access. I guess that's the break that all these internet companies have been waiting for!!!
People suspected of contracting SARS are quarantined for 10 days; but communicate with their families via videophone donated by the telecommunication companies and the government.
Technology has never found better use, and importance!
Also enjoying boom are, the facemask industry, the herbal medicine industry (chinese herbs which are slow stock for a few years have been wiped out by hungry consumers), television industry, and, the food snack (instant noodles, etc).
Perhaps this is the break that this fast-paced region needs: some time to rest, breathe easy for a while. It isn't long before the pace picks up again and everything resumes to normal!
HKSAR territory resident, SARS-free for 5 weeks...
Actually, in BC, the Internet served an incredibly important role.
In Canada, one of the most remarkable things about the SARS outbreak (at least, IMHO) is that Vancouver, which is Canada's gateway to the pacific region, saw a relatively small SARS outbreak, as compared to Toronto, or many asian countries. This despite the fact that many infected travellers either passed through their airports, or actually disembarked there.
Recently, this fact was discussed in a piece on the CBC. In response, the BC health officials said they had been aware that something was coming down the pipe for some time now. This was possible, in part, because the Internet allowed for quick distribution of information regarding the mysterious disease outbreak in China. Many websites had been warning for months that there appeared to be a mysterious "atypical pneumonia" in existence, and that health officials in other countries should be on their toes. As a result, the BC health ministry requested that all hospitals immediately quarantine any patients who exhibited signs of atypical pneumonia.
This experience contrasts with what occured in Toronto, where the first SARS patient was admitted to a hospital, and, because the doctors there had no inkling about this upcoming disease, placed the patient in a room with two other patients, who also developed SARS. And thus began the outbreak in Toronto which, while in the end was handled quite well, still presented a serious challenge, as they simply weren't prepared for it.
So, in the end, BC fared very well. Why? Because the health officials there kept their ears to the ground. And they were able to do this, in part, because the Internet allowed them to gain and share information amongst one another quickly and easily.
If only we could harness the true power of the Internet, and somehow embed distributed computing clients into pr0n. Cure for cancer in 10 minutes.
One of the major problems facing us with regard to pandemics thesedays is air travel. In the past, SARS would not have spread directly from Hong Kong to Toronto for example.
The Internet also provides help in this area by making it less necessary to make physical trips to do business or keep in touch with friends and family.
One of the recent trends in Business Continuity Planning for example is considering the idea of a the virtual workplace as a hot site. How useful is a physical backup location if your workers can't sit in the same room together for medical reasons? For this reason, I suspect the Internet will continue to play an increasingly important role in emergency management.
I live in Malaysia, which is relatively safe from SARS
I wouldn't really proclaim that it's "relatively safe from SARS" : All it takes it one infected person. Toronto (I am sitting in a building beside First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto right now...ground zero, if you will, of the Canadian epidemic) has suffered billions of dollars of economic damage, and some 23 deaths, because one sneezing person came home from a visit to Hong Kong. No one is safe from SARS, and the reality is that after we've got the vectors from the first person (which has largely been heroic health care staff who deserve tremendous respect), it's only a plane ride away from the next guy, and then it's all started again. For those who thought this was just a disease the elderly should worry about (as a hilarious Daily Show humored "If you're 80 with respiratory illness, you should make your peace with God before you go around licking doorknobs"), note that here in Toronto we've had a 39 and a 44 year old, both with no other reported medical conditions, die from SARS.
BTW: For those who think asking some questions at the airport, or doing thermal scans, are protection, realize that while they're better than nothing, they really are more of an illusion of safety than a true protection: They depend upon a person to be in a very specific state of the disease to be evident, but it's still extremely likely to get by in prior or latter stages, at which point it starts all over again. Why Toronto got hit hard while other cities didn't is largely a result of blind (bad) luck than anything else.
Thankfully the virus suspected, the coronavirus, they have had some success making vaccines for (unlike most other virses), so there is hope against this disease that is currently causing about a 6-7% death rate, and some claim that a vaccine is right around the corner. That'll hold us over until the next disease filters out of the "intensive livestock" of the provinces of China which has been quite effective at incompetently exporting weapons of mass destruction.
I don't know about you guys but since the SARS scare, I've been checking out for deals to go to Toronto. Some people might say I'm crazy, but hey! Check this out: Free Trip to T.O.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
As someone in public health, I can see both sides of the story.
Certainly, being able to share information quickly with others is useful. My scientific collaborations are (literally) all over the globe whereas 10 years ago I was lucky to be able to collaborate with labs within a few hundred miles.
But science works best by putting forth hypotheses, testing them, and eliminating the false ones. A downside of the net is that these hypotheses get spread as facts, are then amplified by the media, and then the truth gets ignored since a negative finding doesn't seem newsworthy as the original sensation.
SARS is bad, but it luckly hasn't been that bad so far in US (no deaths...*yet*). And I think undeserving of the sheer amount of attention it has received. But sexy new killer diseases always trump real boring old threats to your well being. SARS even managed to trump an otherwise other guaranteed reporting of the recent outbreak of Ebola in Africa. Let alone the much bigger but mundane killer of influenza (flu).
And in the age of HIPAA, you have to extrememly careful about what and how you share any kind of patient information (check out the forms the next visit to your physician or pharmacy). You cannot compromise patient confidentiality but it happens, due to ignorance or lazyiness, far too often.
Are you saying in your post that you'd rather they didn't do this research?
keep trolling with your leftist agenda. it's sad that a post like that passes for insightful or interesting. The fact is, this is a good thing. I'm sure if you spent the time creating what they're doing, you'd want something in return.
This helps everyone. From people in toronto to china to the US. Finding a cure for sars will restore confidence in travel and economies. I know toronto in particular has had a bad hit from the bad publicity.
Anti-establishment, anti-capitalism types push this off as a bad thing that only helps corporations. Clearly they haven't though it thorugh, or they're just living in lala land.
The Internet also produces funky websites about SARS like this.
I laughed my ass off when I stumbled across this by accident.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Science magazine decided to give free access to its reports on the sequenced genome of SARS. Rather enlightened of them.
...story scientists who cracked SARS' genetic code...
Good thing they did this in Canada; here in the U.S. they'd be arrested for DMCA violations!
While I get the distinct feeling that governments fear free and unmolested communications, and to a lesser extent corperations, they must also realize it's importance.
In the United States of America, durring it's forming, we included free and open communication as part of the supreem law of the land. Nothing can trump it.
By voicing ideas, by communicating there is no problem that cannot be solved. Sure a good right can also be used by a bad person to some evil ends. That happens. But that is a price of this freedom.
Still the benefits always out weigh any problems.
Help keep alive the right of free and open communication, the right of the people to gather peaceably assemble(online or in person). If you don't have this right where you live. I firmly believe you should have it. Do what you can to insure you keep or gain this right.
Know you rights...
First Amendment
Crongress shall make no law respecing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
In this day and age, it is foolish to assume journalistic due diligence.
Don't base your numbers on things you've heard (no deaths in U.S.), or reported in the media (Singapore is in dire conditions).
Get numbers from the source: WHO
The U.S. has 2 confirmed deaths and 54 total cases.
Singapore has had 0 new cases for quite some time now. There has been, however, a local chain of transmission (hence the SARS affected designation).
The entire reason for the Toronto case was inept health care workers that were not on the lookout for these symptoms
Yes, because every single health care worker in Ontario is inept, and every single health care worker in BC is brilliant and informed. BULLSHIT, and it points a giant flashlight on your naevity. Both system of health care workers have access and knowledge of the same information (Ontario's government put out the same alert as BC), but BC got LUCKY (yes, LUCKY) because the front-line worker who got the first case happened to be one rare individual who kept up on the updates, while Toronto got unlucky that the front-line worker there didn't. I assure you, and I'll say this with certainty, that both locals probably have the same ratio of people who follow the medical listservs and those who don't. Don't buy into the politicizing BS lines from those who want to use a situation for their political advantage.
Sure there have been some "younger" people die from SARS in Toronto but most are very old.
Did I say otherwise? There have been a 39 and a 44 year old healthy males dying. The doctor who first alerted the West was in perfect shape and died at 44 in Hong Kong. There are very few illnesses that do that in a 10 day period (and they are among the world's most feared).
A nurse travelled on a commuter train from Toronto to Burlington and back WITHOUT INFECTING ANYBODY.
Thanks for the lesson, Sherlock. The funny thing is that I take that GO train. The nurse in question didn't talk or sneeze during the entire ride, which was likely the saving grace. In Hong Kong whole apartment complexes, or a large percentage thereof, have come down with it just by going by each other in common areas, and you're pretending they have to French kiss each other to get it.
If you are not around a hospital with an infected person, you have no chance of contacting the virus.
Did you miss the whole point of my message? A individual in Malaysia claimed that they were "safe" from SARS in Malaysia : No they aren't. It's one guy who thinks he has a cold and is too manly to see his doctor that could cause a major outbreak. We have it contained in Canada due to extraordinary measures of health care workers (despite the know-it-all armchair criticism of assholes like you, or politicians trying to score some point by stabbing them in the back), but it takes just one more guy flying in, and one more bit of bad luck. This holds true for the entire world, btw, not just Canada. As a Canadian I'm under little increased risk than a guy in Phoenix or New Zealand : Unless you shut down global travel...
Stop the sensationalism.
Oh, gee, I'm sorry. 6% death rate. 23 dead in Toronto alone (ignore the indirect death rate, which is those that are going to die because of deferred treatment due to a devastated health care system). SARS is very likely to take hold in third world nations that can't effectively contain it, and it may very well become a part of life. Sticking your head in the sand and proclaiming that it's no biggie.
Right now, the response to SARS can be considered to be disproportionate. However, SARS seems to have been a recent member of human-infecting virii and may refine its infectiousness through rapid mutation/evolution. Stopping it now can save many lives later on.
Just imagine if the first hundred people with AIDS were quarantined. How many lives would that have saved?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Shamelessly taken from http://bowlingforcolumbine.com/library/fear/index
The press (and the people that pay attention to it) like to sensationalize things about 1) disease 2) man against man "crimes" 3) weather/natural disasters. When in actuality your much more likely to die from any number of other accidents than being a "victem" of these headline incidents.
Western technology has successfully fought the Chinese cover up. The Internet and the blinding speed with which it transmits information has effectively thwarted all attempts by the Chinese to cover up their problem. In fact, here is a sampling of the information about SARS that is readily available from the Internet.
"How the 'global village' faced SARS"
"Experts Expect SARS to Continue Spreading"
"More SARS Cases Are Reported; Virus Found to Persist in Patients"
"China and SARS"
15 years ago, if an epidemic like SARS had erupted, I would have had a much harder time in finding information describing its origin and its symptoms. Now, thanks to the Internet, I know that the Chinese in Southern China "helped" to develop this disease by sleeping with farm animals. The virus crossed the species barrier from, probably, a pig into humans. The Chinese then covered up the problem and, thus, helped to spread it to the rest of the world. According to the latest reports, the SARS virus will now become a permanent part of this world.
Isn't this tired myth dead yet?
Fuck, I just debunked it less than two weeks ago. Guess you're one of the millions who don't browse at +3. :-)
It was all about research. Not necessarily acedemic, but research.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Experts say SARS virus mutating quickly Happy happy..
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
is as a communication tool. Thats why in the past 50 years we have invented more than at any other time in history. as the world becomes networked, it becomes easier to work together. problems on one side of the world are connected with resources on the other side.
SARS and the internet?!?! I'd better update my virus protection.