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"The outbreak in Toronto is traceable back to a single source and has not broken out of the original contact groups. The people who died are almost all elderly people with prior significant health conditions. Should people not travel to an American city during a bad flu..."

Tell it, brother, but don't expect certain panicky / Canada-hating people here to get it. For some it's just a chance to grind their axe against Canada's socialized health care. For others it's a chance to futher their grudge against Canada for not supporting the invasian of Iraq. Some sick bastards even seem quite gleeful about it.

Having read the Mark Steyn article on the subject, I believe he may be correct that our system dropped the ball in the early days of this outbreak, and that may be due to some problems in our socialized health care system. Still, for the most part once SARS was recognized for the danger it is, it had been treated pretty seriously here, and further transmission seems to have stopped now. Yes, some people may have broken their voluntary quarantine, but I doubt if public health authorities anywhere in the western world were ready to forcibly quarantine suspected cases. Once this is past and we reexamine events, that may change for future cases.

Did you see the Steyn piece on this subject, btw? Find it here: http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?id=88370F42-163E-4959-9867-00F390C7368C
Is he correct, or is he just grinding his axe?

Is he correct, or is he just grinding his axe?

I did see the Post article (I'm a subscriber) and I don't think Mark was grinding an axe, though I admit being surprised as my personal experiences with Scarborough Grace have been excellent. Still, the bit about being stuck on a guerny in a high traffic area disturbed me as this is a far too common occurrence in Toronto hospitals.

For some it's just a chance to grind their axe against Canada's socialized health care.

Very true and while the system does have some very serious problems, not the least of which being clogged by people who use emergency wards like family medical offices, Canadian health care is far from the brink of collapse.

Overall I've been impressed how the medical officials have been handling this...daily news conferences with a clear willingness to say what they do and don't know, absence of CYA-speech, and little if any political grandstanding. There's some carping, and justifiable IMO, about the slow reaction of some politicians particularly the grand poobah from Shawinigan (golf with Klinton is much more important than anything, doncha know) but on balance probably the last thing we need is endless prognostications from the politicos.

It looks increasingly like we're getting a handle on this problem. The next week will really be critical. Either we shut this down for the most part or it breaks out. I suspect the former will be closer to the outcome.

Cheers, eh!