[Conservomax]

I doubt it, it is neither contageous or deadly enough to be an efficient bio-weapon. When it comes down to it SARS isn't much more deadly than normal viral pneumonia, and it came from a region where most new cold/flu viruses originate.

[ScholarWarrior]

I agree. This virus comes from sleeping with ducks.

[EternalHope]

When it comes down to it SARS isn't much more deadly than normal viral pneumonia, and it came from a region where most new cold/flu viruses originate.

SARS is much more deadly than viral pneumonia, and much much more likely to put you in the hospital.

Some early mis-info on FR pointed out that hospital acquired pneumonia has a mortality rate of 9%, which was asserted to be higher than SARS. Hospital acquired pneumonia is more deadly than the pneumonia the public is generally afflicted with.

As an aside, the 4% mortality figure currently being used for SARS is computed by simply dividing the number of deaths by the number of victims. It is too soon to know how things will eventually work out, but the Hong Kong statistics are instructive. As of yesterday, Hong Kong had 970 cases. 800 were still in the hospital, some of whom will die. 142 had recovered, and 28 had died. I do not know the average length of a hospital stay, but based on the statistics it seems to be more than 2 weeks.

To say this is nothing more than a really bad cold is absurd.

[556x45]

Not exactly...the Russians were working on 'designer' bioweapons into the late 80's. That work included creating bacterias/viruses that had a combination of desired traits. One of those traits was extra fast transmission.

The other interesting note was that both the Russians and US were working on bioweapons that didnt kill...just incapacitated. That way they could take ground w/o necessarily killing off all (most) life. These weapons also werent easily transmitted after a certain period but before the toxic effect wore off. Its really amazing what the scientists and engineers of both countries cam up with.

[JudgemAll]

I doubt it, it is neither contageous or deadly enough to be an efficient bio-weapon. When it comes down to it SARS isn't much more deadly than normal viral pneumonia, and it came from a region where most new cold/flu viruses originate.

With a 4% kill rate, SARS is a serious problem, especially due to its contagious nature. THe Spanish flue had the same level of kill rate and contagion and it killed 40 million worldwide in its 8 month streak. Sars could kill 200 million. It is an economic weapon.