Slashdot Mirror
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
----
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
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!
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
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.
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!!!
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.
The SARS publicity has been a good thing for the Toronto consumers though. Due to a lack of tourism and people spending money, a lot of stores have dropped the prices of their products. Since I live in Toronto, this is great. But I must say, the WHO putting us on the hot list really messed up our economy. We are already a city out of money, and this didn't help much.
-Boo
'Give me one more medicated peaceful moment'
I take it you're volunteering to be a candidate for herd-thinning?
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
...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
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
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.
Is to remember when the WHO tried to announce that Malaria was eradicated from the earth.
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... _____________________
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?
I personally give credit to their anit-virus software. Why else would this be on /.?
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
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 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
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
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?
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...
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.
> 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()?