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.

Comments

Shouldn't nerds cheer SARS?

[Thinkit3]

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.

Bio-w****n

[Fantastic Lad]

Actually, Toronto's response wasn't good enough. I was there. Their medical people and populace acted like a bunch of television zombies. (Cuz, you know, bad things only happen on TV). WAY too little, WAY too late. Typical Western day dreaming. "Nothing can topple this reality. It's so big and shiney! It will last forever and ever!"

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