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SARS Contained
The World Health Organization has declared that SARS is contained, for now. Toronto has engaged in extensive analysis of the outbreak there, leading to a number of interesting and in-depth stories about the progression of the disease.
this flu season should be frightening. everyone will think they have the sars when it's just the flu.
counting down to the next outbreak of some other nasty bug like hantavirus, westnile, or ebola
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http://www.hellection.com
Sars can be seen in just about any supermarket in the country now... See for example http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet .com/english/2003-05/21/content_879849.htm
I live near Toronto, and there were celebrations all day today, and today was the first day that Canada's Wonderland was filled to near capacity. Holding a seasons pass this year, my delight at seeing SARS gone is kind of put off by the longer lines at the theme park. Don't get me wrong, it is a great thing, but... a two minute line up to get on Drop Zone is a tough thing to give up.
Canadian Cynic, canadian politics is less boring than you
So what your saying is that with subscriptions we can see the future?
Oh, and that plums provide the good karma necessary for accurate fortune telling.
Yes, therefore SARS is not yet contained.
tilTrue.info contechtext.info prettypowerful.info twitter.com/frets fb.com/prosody
A million more to go. Until people, health officials and governments take outbreaks of this nature more seriously. We'll always be in danger from them. In a time when people couldn't just span the globe in a matter of hours, diseases like the flu still managed to kill 25 million people.
Nowadays we are tied together by a lattice work of airlines and freedom of worldwide travel that make us so much more at risk. Of course, where do you draw the line? We need some serious concern, not worldwide paranoia.
I'm not saying SARS was badly handled everywhere. I'm just saying that there may very well come a time in the future where another event starts just like one...but the ending will be much worse.
The civet's out of the bag?
How can they say they have the disease contained if they say, in their next breath, that they expect it to come back again?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
I like that. "SARS Contained". It has a nice ring to it.
Now, could we have this plastered all over your fear mongering channel? I believe you call it CNN.
Ehem, sorry, couldn't resist it... damn those Southpark kids!
Whoever modded this troll is a farking idiot. Take a look at the survival rate provided by WHO. At the height of the outbreak, the death rate was around 12%. Holy f'ing cow! 12% of humans on this earth will probably die from slipping in the shower.
I should say that the SARS scarce has crippled our tourism economy because of all the media hype from around the world. Tourists don't even need to be worried about it because the only potential way of acquiring the disease is to be in the hospitals where the patients who have it are being quarantined.
Thankfully the city of Toronto has since been removed from the list of cities with SARS and hopefully the upcoming concert featuring the Rolling Stones will help promote our city and bring back the tourists in the masses.
I'm not saying you're a homophobe, but your "solution" would at some point entail quarantining infected vectors. This would mean that if someone were to claim AIDS as an epidemic (which some already do) then millions of infected people would need to be separated from the uninfected population. Considering the demographics of AIDS infection, it is clear that large numbers of gay men would necessarily need to have their lives disrupted in order to meet quarantine requirements.
Also if we consider that AIDS is a non-curable disease, there is really no chance for the infected to ever come out of quarantine, thus leaving them in an apartheid-esque state of submission.
The most important thing is to raise health standards globally so that people are more able to ward off disease as they encounter it. Starting with something as easy as implementing U.S. poultry and livestock cleanliness standards to certain asian countries' food processing industries would go a long way in fighting off outbreaks of flu-like viruses.
I have been pwned because my
yeah, we havent heard much about it in weeks; its been pretty much contained quickly after the last "outbreak" btw, i live in richmond hill, pretty much the epicenter of SARS in north america.. York Central Hospital is only a few blocks away..
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
Think about it. In 5-6 months from now, who will be surprised when news comes out that SARS is on the loose again, and then a similar announcement 11-12 months from now from the WHO that it is contained (once again).
/. for their recent bad habit of republishing old stories, my comment is somewhat relevant -- not at all a troll, but a comment on my lack of confidence in the WHO to make such a statement, and one that has been made before...
While I was picking on
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
We went to Ocean Park a couple of weeks ago. It was great to just walk on to any ride we wanted to ... of course the park was losing millions and reduced its hours. And personally I lost a lot of money as classes I teach were cancelled due to SARS hysteria. Kids still have to have their temperature taken at school each morning before beig allowed to go in. At least they don't have to wear the silly facemasks now (these work to prevent spread if you're infected, but are little or no help in stopping you from gettng it, especially as most don't fit them tightly).
This cartoon nicely sums up my opinion of the whole SARS thing:
http://www.vgcats.com/vgc_comics/?strip_id=62
Practical effect here in Toronto:
First outbreak: People were edgy for about two weeks, and a few wore masks. Anyone with a cold got nervous looks when they coughed. Then the novelty wore off and it was business as usual.
Second outbreak: Nil.
The number of people quarantined was about 1% of the city's population. The number of people who were actually sick was far lower. The number of people _dead_ was lower than the number of people murdered here in an average year, and we're a city not known for its violence.
Take is seriously? Sure. Panic? Not justified.
The real harm is that the attention on SARS has drawn attention away from things like West Nile Virus.
Maybe they could run a story "Spam from SCO about SARS" and get it all done in one shot. Member of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen
I'm one of many who's life has been seriously affected by this disease.
All that I feel right now is a huge sense of relief.
Great job to everbody who helped to end it all.
redune.com: The World 3.2 Megapixels at a time
Yay, they've gotten SARS contained, whatever that means. Meanwhile we've got monkeypox to deal with (damn those Wisconsin domesticated prairie dog owners!) and the West Nile virus is scheduled to reach California this summer...
I guess we just have to deal with the fact that we're always going to have to deal with some disease or disaster. As much as we hate to admit it (even for steadfast believers in evolution) we are just animals, after all, and while we may have lots of medicines and other weapons on our side, nature has still got plenty of tricks up her sleeves too.
people would just leave the monkies alone!!!
And the death rate percentage during the black plague in Europe was ONLY %30, WOW!
We all know bad things happen from overpopulation (too many laws, intellectual property). Why not something to thin the herd and/or kill it off completely? Let a species that won't dream up something dumb like copyrights come to power.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
I think to be a manager for The WHO would be a dream come true for Rob.
http://www.emotioneric.com/emotionfill/preventsars .html
Emotion Eric can be used for anything nowadays!
Wash your hands, do not spit in the street, and cover your blow when you sneeze.
Do not talk in ways that insite fear and loathing. Together we can conquor and TERMINATE outbreak. If one man screws it up for everybody, shame on him!
I suggest you read Slashdot
How many people in the states died of it?
:P
Over 800 people died worldwide, and over 8000 had it. See here
SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe this shit has been modded as "insightful". I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's Asians.
posts do not get removed. you are just not browsing at -1, which is necessary for you to see it on the page (note the "n replies beneath your current threshold" -- that's where you can find the first post.
and since you mentioned your precious karma, I'd just like to ask, who the fuck cares? believe it or not, I have excellent karma and let me tell you, there's nothing special about it. 'karma' is just cmdrtaco's lame ploy to try to get people to post somewhat coherent additions to the terrible stories (and most often, they're written by michael).
Sales of Embola Cola remain steady.
From what I know, SARS was similar to a virus that infects rabbits when they overpopulate so some scientists felt SARS was due to the overpopulation of China... I think it should really say we were contained.
if you get SARS, you have a MUCH higher chance of dying than if you get the flu. And the whole "it spread to other countries fast as hell thing. And the whole "there's nothing we can do but tell you to stay away from people with it" thing.
...and let that be a lesson to you.
Make sure the seals on the building you use for bio-weapon testing are solid.
Who stole my tinfoil hat?
http://jesus.everdense.com/
You know, the flu doesn't spread so virulently during the summer. Heck, most of the time flu season is during the winter. The flu doesn't hide during the summer, it's just dormant and afflicting only a few people.
The question is, once fall/winter comes, will SARS spread again? And will it be worse now - i.e., is it dormant and people will unwittingly spread it to other people?
It may be contained now, but is it really? Or if the weather turns a bit cold, we see more outbreaks?
The container has been misplaced...
...bad for lunch.
I live in Toronto, and all the great asian restaurants near work were half-empty instead of jam-packed due to SARS overreaction. I had never had such an easy time getting a table for lunch.
Oh well... the dream is over.
As soon as Toronto gets taken off the list there are massive celebrations and the same thing happened in Hong Kong. That's not a bad thing per say but I can't help but wonder if people are letting their guard down.
The Singapore government has done a fantastic job in containing and combating SARS and they continue to do so even after being of the WHO's list for sometime now. Daily temperature checks for public servants and temperature scanning at all ports of entry continue. They've even gone far as to develop a SARS channel on cable TV. Bottom line, we have to continue to live but not live ignorantly.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
I don't know which is more appalling: your sense of racial equality or your understanding of virology.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
When the terrorist biological weapon hits, releasing some robust, vaccine-resistant mutation of smallpox, whichever city it lands in will do its best to keep it under wraps so as not to damage its tourism industry. SARS was benign. I am not encouraged.
Nerd Rock In Progress
Damn .. after sitting out the virus incubation period here in Beijing it's a relief to finally be rid of this damn SARS plague *SNEEZE* It's about *cough* time that *sneeze* we chine*sneeze* se *cough* can*cough* *wheeze* gkjdsaf g-ggo abbo*cough* *sneeze* aout about our .. ..*gasp* oxygen
busin*groan* *gasp*
air
*gasp* *cough*
China have a huge population but now famillies are limited to 1 children. Chinesse prefer male child so there is a lack of female. If the plan of the autorities work, the chinesse population will drop very fast because the number of birth is proportional to the number of woman and the number of male have very few effect.
:S
But there may be some side-effects to this scenario:
Do you think chinesse man will sit and say "Well, there is no girl available. Let's masturbate!"? Maybe some will do that. But they are more likely to search for female outside of china. In other asian countries, then in USA, EU, UK....
Nobody know what will happens....
[Sorry for my choices of words. I know some of them wasn't realy appropriate.]
I went to Ocean Park in April, and thanks to SARS I didn't have to wait in line for any ride. It was interesting to see people wearing facemask in the park, and I even saw some people wearing mask to hike. Anyway, I would be less nervous if the government honestly reported SARS statistics.
How much did Toronto have to pay off the WHO to lift the travel ban the first time, when as soon as they did the SARS outbreak took off like wildfire? I think the WHO don't know jack and are just looking to make some bucks off threatening cities with 'travel bans'.
Is to remember when the WHO tried to announce that Malaria was eradicated from the earth.
...but dying off
Rock!
those 20-people chineese villages still have infected people....
So this whole sars thing has effected me and my business. The apparent confusion that the world health organization has between declaring Toronto safe, not safe, and now safe until the next time comes down to simple marketing.
It is no secret that the sars outbreak is a very serious thing brought to light by post-war news coverage that needs another headline. Much of the worry has been created by the media and really only effects tourisim.
rejected (19) accepted (0)
Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
I think that was the century flu(see early 1900's), if I remember right the plauge was closer to 90%.
The phrase "decimation of the european continent" should give you a good scope of the number of people that died from it.
Om, nomnomnom...
Netcraft confirms: SARS is dying...
I really worry about how we as a wealthy nation use anti-biotics like candy, for things like the common strep throat. When I see the SARS case I see somthing out of a Stephen King Novel with the plot of being pawns in someones game. If we had a better combined effort in sharing meds, technology we would have half of the problems that we are facing.
Are there any Slashdotters out there with first hand perspectives on the current SARS situation in China? I've been wondering why outbreaks have only 'occured' in the big cities. Do smaller outbreaks in less well known cities not get picked up by Western media? With such densely populated cities, plus a few months of a head start in having SARS around, I find it rather remarkable that it was contained at all.
Heck, even Toronto had a second outbreak while everyone was still on alert. Mind you, that's not meant as an negative comment on my fellow Canadians, rather it's a statement of how hard it must be to contain this particular bug - there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of room for error.
"Taiwan had reported 674 cases of SARS and 84 deaths -- the highest death total after China, with 348 deaths and Hong Kong with 298. The United States reported 73 cases but no deaths.
SARS contained across the globe
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Personally, I'm skeptical as to whether the disease is really contained...I will believe that Toronto is safe for now, but I disagree with anyone saying that China's SARS is contained. China is a huge nation, and I feel that if SARS went largely untreated over there(which is likely), then there could most certainly be a threat for people in China, and travelers, and for that matter all Asian countries. Now, everyone is saying how China's SARS outbreak is largely over, and I disagree. I think the Chinese government is hiding more than they wish to reveal. China is a budding superpower, and they wouldn't want something like this to tarnish their reputation, so they hide it. There's more to this than the media's telling us, I feel... _____________________
People are dead. People with family and friends.
"Stan! You must find a cure for SARS. I only have a 98% chance of living!"
At least South Park was able to see SARS hype was overblown...
You ignorant troll. It was actually old unlicenced versions of windows 95 and 98 that were the most popular choice of Islamic Terrorists. We need to get rid of another virus. It's name is you.
Support Israeli punk bands. Man Alive.
more than 800 people die every year from the common cold and way more than 8,000 get it. Yeah, not an epidemic, not a scare, nothing to worry about.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Take a look. Also, keep in mind that most people that get west nile don't know they're sick, and we still only have a death rate in diagnosed cases of about 7.5%. On a more sensationalist note, about as many people died in 9/11 as were diagnosed with West Nile in all of 2002, and even then, less than 300 died, out of about 300 million people. The flu(!) kills about 36000 per year in the US. It's going to be another 20 years or so before I worry about West Nile, and I'm paranoid ;)
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
>>SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues. :P
>I'm sorry, but I can't believe this shit has been modded as "insightful". I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's Asians.
Amen, brother. Please mod parent up.
This is the kind of ignorant attitude that makes Americans hated by so many people. Don't get me wrong, I've lived in the US for 5 years, and most Americans are just fine people. A few loose-gun assholes like this one give American people very bad reputation outside.
Anyways, we are happy in China that this thing is over. A lot of businesses would have gone belly up, if this were to prolong for another month or so. A friend of mine, who is the CEO of a small trading company (oil industry monitoring devices), has seen their business drop by 50%, and they are the lucky one. Another friend's company, which is tightly related to travel industry, saw his business go down by 95%.
It's misleading to high-five Canada's food inspection system over that infected cow found in Alberta. Essentially, the animal was clearly exhibiting symptoms of the disease and so it was obviously necessary to remove it from the system.
It is reasonable to think that many other animals may have been infected by that one animal, or co-infected by whatever source infected that one animal.
In particular, note that an autopsy is necessary to conclusively diagnose Mad Cow, so there is a short-sighted economic incentive to assume that animals are healthy, unless there is overwhelming evidence (as in this case) that the animal is infected.
Further, there was a lag of several months between the time the animal was removed from the system, and the time any statement about it was released to the public.
Sure the public over-reacts, and often with valid reason: the agriculture industry and the government have demonstrated that they value human lives only on aggregate.
That's because of how well it's spread in densely populated areas, eg in Asia. It's possibly more contagious, but then nobody's been getting their seasonal SARS shots, either.
You can't compare how many they've killed this year if one is being fought with foreknowledge and another races through a petri dish of panicked people.
I personally give credit to their anit-virus software. Why else would this be on /.?
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
Or frell. Fucking nerds.
A much better, more informative book, also much longer, is Lauri Garrett's The Coming Plague. I believe it won the Pulitzer. I had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Garrett speak at the Capitola Book Cafe - she graduated from nearby UC Santa Cruz.
I later heard Ms. Garrett speak on the radio regarding public health. She said a survey found that a majority of Americans, when asked, said that they were opposed to public health.
(They were confused, and the confusion is unfortunate. The US doesn't have publicly funded medical care like Canada does, but public health is the reason the nation isn't swept with plagues every couple years. Things like mass vaccination, sewer treatment, mosquito abatement and the like. Americans are too dimwitted to know that that's what public health means.)
Both books talk quite a bit about Ebola, and The Hot Zone describes an event when a bunch of research monkeys were imported to the U.S. that were infected with an Ebola-like virus.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
In my line of work (interviewing Americans via telephone for a Canadian market research firm), I talk to a lot of Americans on the phone. A lot of the time when I tell them I'm Canadian, they ask me about SARS. Some people even said, "Are they still droppin' like flies from the SARS up there?" Now I can reply, "No."
Maybe so, but it's also misleading ot suggest it's entirely ineffective.
Sure the public over-reacts, and often with valid reason
That makes no sense, to over-react is to react more strongly than reason would allow
It is reasonable to think that many other animals may have been infected by that one animal, or co-infected by whatever source infected that one animal.
How many more herds need to be slaughtered and tested before everyone's convinced? What happens if they discover the cow came from the U.S.? Note that "infected by that animal" isn't an option -- it's only spread by one animal eating an infected animal, something that's outlawed for cows -- it's also entirely possible (though rare) for it to develop spontaneously in a given cow.
Act with the best possible means to ensure health and safety for all? Certainly. Panic to the point where an entire industry dies out and the economy suffers drastically? No! Same goes with SARS.
Everybody just needs a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy lying around the house.
In Canada, as in the U.S, health care in general is a provincial responsibility (with parts delegated to the county or municipal level), with federal assistance. The government of Ontario is currently conservative, small-govermnent (i.e. pro-cutbacks) one for the past decade or so. One of the things that were cut back were the disease researchers whose job it was to identify new diseases, develop tests and diagnostic procedures for them, and distribute this information. A typical politician, the Health Car Minister justified this by asking "what, is a brand new disease going to magically appear?".
Conversely, the past decade in BC has been a big-government (i.e. pro-spending) one, until recently (when a large fraction of the public sector was amputated). However, it has a more fully funded health care system, and was able to quickly react to the news of a new disease.
With Ontario's "immune system" essentially crippled, it fell on other provinces (including BC, where the responsible corona virus DNA was first sequenced) and the federal government to pick up the slack.
The relative merits of a mainly publically or mainly privately funded health care system can be debated, but one thing that any government should realize, regardless of it's political philosophy, is that whatever system it prefers, the one that exists must be fully supported even if it's counter to the party principles.
Another lesson to be learned is that the world is becoming too mobile to leave health care as a purely local responsibility. In the case of Canada, Ontario might have been helpless except for the federal research facilities near Winnipeg, Manitoba, because of its health and safety negligence (the same negligence was responsible for water safety problems in Walkerton which led to a similar number of deaths). Without effective research, the outbreak could have spread country-wide.
National governments may not be accountable enough either. China's government was downright deceitful over the spread of SARS in that country, and without international pressure and some wistle-blowers risking their jobs, the disease could still be spreading there.
The fallout from these problems would not have been limited to single nations. If SARS had spread across Canada, the U.S would have had to choose between closing the border (which is the single largest flow of imports and exports for both countries), seriously crippling the U.S economy in the middle of trying to recover from a recession (maybe enough to make it a depression, and killing G.W.Bush's chances of re-election for good), or risking the spread into a wider population (and crippling the economy in another way).
The World Health Organization is important, but it is only an advisory body - it has no authority to influence policy or implement operational changes in health care delivery. As a result, government from countries (China and others) to local (Ontario and others) have become holes in a global system, purely due to their own short-sightedness. These holes threaten world health these days.
Further, there are entire regions where health care is inadequate simply because of economic poverty. Wealthy countries find it convenient to ignore the conditions in places like these, but it should be clear by now that those conditions can cost the wealthy countries billions or trillions of dollars of their own wealth due to the spread of diseases which are controllable. SARS (limited to countries with fairly well-developed health care systems) was a few pennies compared to the economic costs of AIDS (originating in countries with crumbling hospitals able to care for only a handful of their populations, most of whom never see a hospital in their entire lives).
Obviously, it's in everyo
And I live in the heart of Toronto. I mean, who goes outside anyhow? pffft LOOSERS!
But for real, downtown in the t-dot-izzo and I've seen ONE PERSON wearing a mask the whole time of this SARS episode. ONE PERSON in all of the downtown that I am in daily. He was chinese, and had bags around his ankles and hands. I think he was a schizo anyhow.
But I'm young, dumb and full of cu^h^hlife so what do I care. At twenty one and prime health I can defend against it. I pitty the 50+ crowd.
China is probably going to continue to voer up some cases, expicall y in the major ecomonic zones such as SHanghai, SHenzhen, and Beijing. If they just stopped spitting and other un sanitary things, and most importantly learn to build an apt complex that doesnt spread disease and make the building smell like feces they could get some real work done. However, its hard to break old habits. My apt had similiar piping as Amoy Gardens, when i lived in china people hocked spit like it was their job, even while running top speed to catch the bus. When i first arrived in SHenzhen last year there was already a pink eye problem in the city and in buses many people had it. If hong hong didnt get infected, who knows what might have happened.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
So... you've just said that the common cold is less fatal then SARS. Why does this mean it's nothing to worry about?
Humanity 1, Mother Earth 0
Oh wait...
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
I read an article once that hypothesized that SARS may be seasonal. I was rather struck by it because I had hypothesized myself it looked seasonal. So, if I am right, SARS is not at all dead but dormant. It will awake around fall/winter with the flu season. If it does, we may not be able to contain it this time around.
A vaccine would be nice and should be quite easy since it doesn't mutate. If there is a vaccine, we all might have to take it.
I also predict that we'll have many more new diseases like SARS every few years threatening the world population. Some may be even more deadly. It will not stop here.
Celebrate for now, but watch out!
If we continue using antibacterial products EVERYWHERE, we will have a whole lot of diseases far worse than SARS on our hands. Don't people understand that by using mild antibacterial agents, we are helping disease evolve into strains that we may never be able to deal with?
We distort. You comply.
News with as many holes as Windows.
You've got news!
Will I retire or break 10K?
WHO just likes to pimp out drugs. The virus that supposedly caused SARS was never actually isolated. The amount of the "virus" is what usually determines how devistating the virus is. The amount of SARS was never measured in any patients because they didn't know what they were really looking for. Add to this the fact that a large portion of the people who died were elderly. Give an elderly person, with a weak immune system, some drugs...quarenteen em in a depressing place like a hospital....tell em they have a deadly virus. Even if they never had anything in the first place, the negative effects of the above is enough to kill a person. In the end, the OP works out for WHO. They make themselves look like saviors. What happens to the countries that go against WHO's agenda? They get called inhumane and denied future aid. So...the media makes a huge deal out of a variation of the flu, people run scared and buy worthless masks, and WHO is the hero!!! WHO is an organization run by ex and current Pharmaceutical stock holders. They pump out new and deadly diseases, and viruses. Then the drugs start flowing. Then the cash starts flowing. SARS is just another OP to make WHO look godlike. Period. 1. Create worldwide scare 2. Save the world with a cure 3. PROFIT!!
get em girls. daddy needs new shoes.
Oh dear God, the people posting messages stating that SARS was over-hyped and nothing serious are really, really looking like twits.
First off, if the 'media hype' had not taken place, countries would have not been pressured to take measures (by scared civilians) to control it. Thus, SARS would have spread to a MUCH larger percentage of the population. 10% deathrate doesn't sound like revelations or anything, but think of your elderly parents and grand parents. They would likely have a very tough time. Remember, the 10% if overall. That can mean 19-35 year olds have a 3% chance of death, but elderly could have something like 85-90% since their immune systems can't cope.
Secondly, scientists still don't understand the virus. Wouldn't you like to give them a little extra time to come to grips with how it works and what gets rid of it before you talk out of your ass about how it's not serious?
Third, this is a virus. Not a bacterial infection. It's quite likely this will become a recurring disease. You take drugs to help fight it, most gets killed off, some mutates, goes to sleep for a few months, then re-infects with the mutated virus; then is likely harder to battle.
Finally, did you people who think it's not serious bother to read about the condition of SARS patients who have recovered? Didn't think so. They may have survived, but most have permanent scarring in their lungs. You want that to happen to you and your family? Want to have to wait and wonder, dreading the next 'season'? What if it comes back? You might not be able to survive a second infection since your lungs are still damaged from the first one.
I don't mean to sound offensive, but what sort of idiot wants to take chances? It really bothers me that 'geeks' would feel this way, considering we are supposed to be some of the smarter ones. Guess I was wrong...
SARS spread as rapidly as the cold, and is more deadly than the normal flu and way more deadly than the cold. If it were allowed to spread (and this could still happen, I'm in Toronto and we just finished "ridding" ourselves of this for the second time) there could be millions of people dead from it. There is roughly a ~10% death rate... if it were to spread like a cold to hundreds of millions of people, we could have something as bad or worse than the flu epidemic. I don't mean to be a fear monger, but this isn't "nothing to worry about". If people weren't so vigilent about this we could have been in that situation by now.
When is somebody going to set up an irc server here?
irc://irc.who.int
Could somebody near the centre of the action tell Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, or her Dr Jong-wook Lee, her replacement, about irc. A Slashcode server would not be a bad idea either.
It might save quite a few lives one day.
A few loose-gun assholes like this one give American people very bad reputation outside.
Yep, and when we put one in the White House it doesn't help either...
Maybe gmajor was referring to the fact the Chinese government censored all information about SARS. If an infected people don't know they have a serious disease, they won't go to a hospital. If they don't go to a hospital, they won't be quarantined and will keep spreading the disease until they die.
The measure of this 'virus' in the Canadian victims was 0%. Yes, that is ZERO PERCENT. When can a virus kill by its very absence? Answer: When 'experts' say it can.
How does that dis or un claim the points made?
It merely is an additional informational point appended on after (or "post") the main point.
English is a well developed tool for communication, and can be used to craft the sublime and beautiful when thoughtfully wielded.
Thoughtful users of English deserve information as needed to hone their skills; while careless thinkers and unthinking speakers who absorb and repeat strings of sounds with little to no parsing deserve nothing so much as to be left to the emptiness of their braying.
I managed to contain SARS a few months ago.
M-O-O-N, that spells "Taco is Gay". Laws, Yes.
> SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues.
;-)
So what disease do we need to eliminate American overconsumption?
Sheesh.
Now the fact that the West isn't reeling from a sweeping plague is interesting, isn't it? Very little was done differently here than in China, except here it all turned out okay, didn't it? Nothing bad ever really happens. Reality just keeps on tugging along, so there's no point in being too concerned. There's always a job in the morning and always a television at night.
--The cause was Chinese spitting and bad sewage? Get real. While the Chinese may spit, and while their sewage systems may suck, (neither of which I am certain are entirely true. Never seen a Chinese spit in any media until now), it's still just PR spin doctoring. If doctors and nurses were dropping like flies and even WHO personell were dying. . , if people taking the right precautions, wearing the right plastic, washing their hands between patients, (and not spitting on the hospital floors). . , if these people were still getting sick, then Toronto should be a toxic plague zone right now.
Have you seen the under-funded, over-strained Toronto public transit system on a hot day during rush hour? --I was there during the height of the SARS thing, and I can tell you first hand that there was some serious fluid exchange going on down there in those nasty tunnels. --And in those hermetically sealed work-places with too little air-cycling. Do you know how easily disease spreads? People get the flu for a reason. You can't stop shit like that; not after nearly three weeks of lax measures and people ignoring quarantine orders. People only started taking things seriously when it was essentially WAY too late. Disease vectors multiply geometrically, folks. You basically can't staunch those kinds of flows after more than ten days of unlimited spread.
China needed military measures, mass panic and a near total shut-down of their economy to get things under some semblance of control. But Toronto, day-dreaming through the whole event with little more than some newscasts showing ambulance drivers wearing plastic suits to make people think that 'Something Was Being Done', was able to stop SARS cold after three weeks of doing virtually nothing? Give Me A Break.
Toronto should be a big red glowing dot on some military map right now, and it would be if somebody hadn't stepped in.
Can you say, "Friendly Fire"?
They don't make 'em if they can't cure 'em. (Man, and when they finally piss off China enough, the ant will be stamped by the elephant. I'm willing to bet that the US military doesn't have enough bullets for every Chinese. Do you have any idea how big the standing army is in China? --Before a draft?)
Too bad it's all a stage production. The masters of China and the masters of the US are the same. It's all a light show, folks! And SARS, (in the West, anyway), was Hamlet fumbling his lines. But the audience doesn't care. Nobody knows their Shakespear anymore.
Of course, I'm just a crank. I don't know anything. Move along citizen.
-FL
I found this: SARS Scam the other day linked from a skepticism site... Now, this very article is probably all groundless wild speculation (especially as the author of the artcile also has a webshop with HERBAL pills that will heal just about anything), but it would be interesting to ponder if even on a fictional level, how diseases released at certain times, could help shift peoples focus away from other world-events. And also as a mass-psychological behavioural experiment.
"6EQUJ5"
If it were to spread a little faster than it did in Toronto only a small potion of those infected would even be able to get treatment.
Combine that with the fact many of the 'recovered' patients haven't. They may no longer have SARS but some of them will remain on resperators for weeks; a few possibly for years.
I'm still disgusted at how they reported the statistics.
I overheard an H.R. director talk about how much of a waste it was and how SARS was no worse than the flu, etc. I don't think he realized that if SARS infected the employees at his company they could have expected a 10% mortality rate followed by another few percent (unknown) unable to return to work for weeks/months. FOr his position I found his attitude and ignorance disgusting.
You just know that the whole tone of this thread would be dramatically different if SARS had hit even the smallest populated area in the U.S. (aside from Alaska or Puerto Rico, I fear).
Hell, to many readers, we might as well be talking about an obscure strain of malaria on a small South Pacific island six years ago.
SARS is reality, and reality does not discriminate on the basis of national borders.
I live in Toronto, and yes the media made an absolute feast out of this f*cker. However, while the impact of SARS itself may not be evident, the public clearly understands what it is like to effectively be quarantined from the rest of the world, simply because they live in a particular city (of 3 million others).
I guess what I'm saying is this: when you see news reports about disease/violence that takes place Far Away On the Other Side of The World, take the hype with a grain of salt, but never forget that it's only a matter of time before you will be in that very same scenario. Don't treat it as something you are immune to, and don't ignore the psychological/sociological horrors that those people are experiencing.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I can just see the movie based on the SARS outbreak: Dustin Hoffman argues with his superior officer: "But, sir, we cannot bomb Toronto! The conservative government has finally taken its head out of its ass and is doing something about the problem!"
"Decimation of the european continent" would imply that 10% of Europeans died. And actually, it was more like 30%. But the confusion here is between the mortality rate and the infection rate -- with the black plague, IIRC, slightly less than half the population was infected, and somewhat more than half of those infected died, leading to the 30% figure. If the plague had killed off 90% of Europeans alive at the time, we'd all be speaking Arabic now, a la The Years of Rice and Salt.
There's a good argument that Europe was terribly overpopulated, and the plague killed just the right number to reduce the strain on available resources and spark the Renaissance. Of course, that's easy for us to say, blithely, looking back across the centuries. Sucked at the time. <1/2 g>
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
We all know the media loves to scare people by infered exageration, using "creative editing" where it would seem like everybody in Toronto is wearing a mask when the opposite was really true.
No one (except for the media) is asking you to panic. Rather, I would expect you to spread facts about SARS rather than dismissive conjecture by disproportionately comparing it to the flu and pneumonia.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
...was the backbone of the Third Reich.
I would love to see how you would have performed under Milgram's experiment.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
The recent deluge of "sars is over" news articles does not fit with the fact that China covered up sars for several years.
These articles are pr to prevent the Asian economies from collapsing due to the lack of international travel and trade.
You guys remind of the people who say that the whole uproar over Y2K wasn't necessary. Nothing happened, so that proves the whole prevention effort was unnecessary, right? All overblown hype!
But a lot of stuff was actually fixed. There would have been problems if it hadn't been attacked like that. Of course the media was too sensationalistic about it, but Y2K was a problem, or at least it could have been.
SARS turned out not to be that big of a problem. There was a huge containment effort and much media hype. People keep pointing out that the flu kills many more people.
So what do they suggest should have been done? Just give them anti biotics and see what happens? The reason SARS was not such a huge problem at the end is precisely because of the huge containment effort. What if SARS had been allowed to spread so that it had affected just 1% of the people who get flu every year? Major disaster, and by that time it would have been impossible to contain.
I think WHO did exactly the right thing, especially since so little was known about the virus. Most diseases take centuries to wipe out, we actually managed to contain SARS before it became widespread! Sounds to me that's exactly what we have organizations like the WHO for, and it actually worked.
Of course the media hype meant that the economy was hurt more than it had to be. It wasn't perfect. But I think we can be pretty happy, overall.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Actually there's significant evidence that West Nile poses no threat to children. Some health officials in Ontario have gone so far as to hint* that intentionally exposing children to the virus will give them an immunity later in life when infection could have negative consequences. To date, an 18-year-old is the youngest fatality in Canada and very few children have come down with any symptoms at all.
* They can't actually recommend this for fear of lawsuits. :(
Frank Plummer, director of research at the WHO laboratory in Canada, stated in his last report on the subject that he was finding the virus in 0% of all SARS cases.
If the virus is not there then theses SARS cases are the result of other causes. In the old days an MD would actually make a diagnosis of each patient's condition in order to offer them the correct treatment for their illness. Nowadays they just tell everyone who comes into their shop with a runny nose that they have the latest virus.
Now, the fact that people are dying does not mean that they are dying of some virus, even if WHO asserts that it must.
If you drink raw sewage you will get ill.
If you starve yourself you will get ill.
If you take toxic chemicals for prolonged periods of time you will get ill.
If you do not take care of your immune system you will get ill.
If you come into contact with a concentration of a particular virus you will most likely get ill.
If you have 0% of this virus inside your body, and you are ill, then the virus is not the cause.
Look: SARS is less contaigous that influenza. It was contracted by fewer people and had killed a lot fewer people than the flu does every year.
WHY has sars been the lead story for so many months when Influenza has a much more damaging impact on the world health every year than this infection called SARS?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
> Make sure the seals on the building you use for bio-weapon testing are solid.
We don't use seals, they're just not smart enough, and every time the French guys start talking about them, the English guys start laughing. It's just too hard to get anything done with seals in Canada as long as the government continues to mandate a bilingual top-secret workforce.
We do use Dolphins, though. And they're solid; hell, they're built like brick shit houses! Members of the elite Dolphin Guard even have special filters covering their blow holes. (Previously, two Dolphin Guards were compromised by delayed-trigger grenades which were set to detonate when the guards got close to sensitive areas).
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
The War in Eurasia is over, declared our Great Leader.
etc.
Fuck the Media.
Like Y2K
I stole this Sig
I finally caught it
Why would the popular kids care what the unpopular ones opinions were? pecking order.
I hope to blithely look forward to a similar occurance when all the baby boomers retire enmasse. Them or us; because if they don't die off, the smaller younger working population trying to support their retired asses will be unsuccessful, simple math, there's too many of 'em, which will wipe everyone out anyway. That or we shluff the problem off to our kids & grandkids by going into more debt like the boomers did to avoid paying for their parents retirement. Now you know what kids are good for, to pay for your retirement! There is no savings.
Maybe you should talk to some health care workers about how "nothing was done". You know, the ones who put in countless hours + overtime working to contain an unknown disease. They put themselves & their families at risk day after day for whiney little bitches like you. You should be grateful.
Hm. So included in that "A for Effort" would also be quarentine orders regularly ignored by health care professionals during the first two weeks? --And SARS carriers being sent home because the doctors didn't believe that patient conditions were anything more than common cold symptoms?
Look, I realize that the medical community did get serious, and that they worked diligently with the information they had available. But I'm sorry. It was too little, too late, even for them. --You have to remember, that when things like this spin out of control, which it did, the powers that be have to create a convincing illusion, not just for the public, but also for the workers within the infrastructure. They did a pretty good job, too.
So, do you actually know any health care workers? What did you hear?
I'll share if you do.
-FL
Amen! Americans are on top of the world wide food chain and like we say to every other whiny country that doesn't like it: fucking deal with it, losers.
This seems very similar to the extreme reaction to Legionairre's disease. This fiasco cost the U.S. millions trying to create a vaccine for a disease that was worse in the fantasy news world than it was in reality. I can't wait until they spend millions on SARS drugs that are rendered useless by a single gene mutation. I personally, would rather take my chances on the current form of SARS, than a fitter, stronger virus.
said that small-pox had been eradicated from Africa, by renaming it monkey-pox. Or when they say that the people of Africa are dying of a virus, and giving them drugs instead of food.
In a few articles, I've heard that the WHO and CDC established secure web sites to aid in the communication and collaboration. One was in the (paper) Technology Review from MIT. Another is Forbes here
I've done about an hour of googling, and the only lead I've found is this:
from: http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,3959,1161972 ,00.asp
The federal government is prepared to spend $377 million on medical communications and surveillance improvements in fiscal 2003, according to President Bush's proposed budget. The CDC is linking its bio-terror preparedness funding grants to NEDSS-compliance.
So far, all 50 states and large cities such as New York have received funding for the surveillance system, but the national rollout, is expected to take "several years," says Loontz.
Under a pilot, Tennessee is using federal funds to replace its DOS-based system, with a NEDSS-based system with Microsoft SQL 2000 and BEA Systems WebLogic software running in the background.
My guess is that the real webmasters behind the collaboration were using something like simple FTP sites, or Zope-like CMS for the collaboration.
Celebrate Excellence!
Isn't the WHO a UN commission? So, why does anyone even listen to them? It's not like they help.
Have you read my journal today?
Hm. I provide a thoughtful post with some valid points, and you respond with unthinking rudeness.
This clears up a great deal regarding the intelligence level of your initial post. That is, you seem to have no brain. But perhaps I am speeding to a conclusion too quickly. Let's see if you can answer the following. .
Upon what exactly do you base your belief that people never conspire to keep damaging data from the public? Could you please provide a link or something? Or is it purely intuition upon which you base your complete faith in the Corporate management, Government workers and Organized crime of the world?
-FL
You are too funny.
Fantastic Lad, the only one who has managed to figure it all out, shakes his head sadly as he looks at all the lemmings around him as they march on, enslaved in some great celestial prank.
Do you often find yourself engaging in rants about "the man" and how he is screwing you over? Do you hide money inside your mattress for fear that the "guv'ment" will take it away from you?
Do I need to spell it out for you any clearer? You are a paranoid loser! Now go put on your tinfoil hat like a good little freak before someone steals your thoughts.
- Toby
It's funny, but your reaction is as much of a kneejerk as you make his out to be. And you wonder why both stereotypes have been ingrained so deeply the past 50 or so years.
gee look, an AC just happened to stumble across this old convo... what are the chances?
I think the part I like best is how when he thinks he is off the public record, all pretense of civility and rationality drop like a rock.
Interestingly, I find that this brand of follower is fairly common. The primary fear/motivation in life to the exclusion of virtually all other considerations is to be accepted by the pack. They tend to be a mess when you delve more deeply, because s/he has spent most available energy on maintaining surface appearances, scrambling to keep up with common concensus and the hell away from anything which is publically scorned, regardless of logic. --Which, incidentally, is why they use ridicule with such force, i.e., the 'Tinfoil Hat' refrain ad nauseum; because they have a gut level fear of such tactics, (an ancient survival mechanism trumped up and deliberately induced early on through childhood trauma), they exist in a near permenant state of fear of being excluded. They have great difficulty conceiving why such tactics have virtually no effect on those who have managed to break free of that particular control mechanism.
Consequently, it's very easy to sell lies to this sort; partly because they're so scrambled that they are entirely unable/unwilling to grasp that their thoughts might be regularly influenced by numerous outside sources, everything from the immediate media to seeds planted during childhood. (It takes forever to undo all of this programming in order to find oneself. Most people never even start! "I'm 100% me, baby! And my favorite soft drink is. .
--Incidentally, if you look around, you will discover that I'm not actually a stereotypical example of anything. Honestly; when was the last time you ran across the 'conspiracy theorist' stereotype in anything other than a television show? --And before you answer too quickly, you should know that I am gainfully employed, well educated, bathe regularly, have many friends and am well respected in my community.
Hmmm. .
-FL