For the whole article (recommended reading, click on the link).
An expert was on the CoastToCoast radio show last night. I was kind of half-asleep so don't quote me, but I think he was hinting that the Chinese might have been "playing" with this and it got "loose".
Hopefully they will develop a vaccine before we all have to start wearing surgical masks...
Investigations by Hong Kong authorities suggest SARS was brought into that territory in February 2003 by a semi-retired professor of medicine from Guangdong Province. Three cases of strange pneumonia reported in November 2002 point to the Foshan area of Guangdong as the likely geographic origin of SARS. Other cases followed but there were no reports permitted in the Chinese press, despite (as we later learned officially) growing numbers of deaths. By late March the Guangong Province admitted they had seen almost 800 cases with 34 deaths.
The Chinese government only disclosed official figures of infections and deaths at the end of March, after deaths were reported throughout the world caused by a rapidly spreading viral pneumonia, all trailing back it seemed into China. This crucial delay has meant that China itself is now likely to face a far more severe SARS epidemic, and made spread much more likely elsewhere. The SARS epidemic is acutely embarrassing to all countries with cases on their own soil, and particularly to the Chinese who are deeply sensitive to losing face, appearing weak or blameworthy to the rest of the world."
"SARS has been called flumonia because it spreads like flu and kills like pneumonia.
SARS death rates seem to be around 4% of those infected.
SARS deaths occur when lung tissue swells so that breathing becomes impossible.
SARS experimental treatments include the use of high dose steroids and antiviral medication.
SARS recovery rates seem to be higher in the young and those without other illnesses."
posted on March 29, 2003 07:41:30 AM new
Mornin' bones - Yes, I keep seeing little blurbs here and there about this, but with all the war coverage we're probably not hearing as much as might be helpful.
Of interest to me, in your article, was:
Ontario, Canada declared a provincial SARS emergency allowing legal action to remove personal freedoms for those affected if necessary to prevent spread (compulsory quarantine). Looks like Canada is going to actively take as much control of this as is possible, and I hope the US does too. To not do so, imo, is to allow it to spread even further. Same thing I thought during the first few outbreaks of HIV/AID...before we even knew what it was.
