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Perhaps the brightest thought on SARS is that it's mortality rate is low, and here in the US we have good sanitation and medical care. I'll wager that most healthy people here who contract SARS only miss a few days work and feel terrible, as with the flu. It is the poor, dirty, overcrowded countries who will see the worst effects.

Actually it is the developed 'healthy' countries that will see the worst effects. Based primarily on the following factor.

SARS is primarily an economic disease! By this i mean that by itself it is not a major threat to the populace when looked at in strict medical terms .....but the trepidation stemming from fear of SARS has crippled the Hong Kong economy, thrown a wrench into the adjacent Asian fiscal systems, and in a few weeks reduced Toronto's economy but what is said to be 50%! The airline industries, tourism industries, foreign investment, certain service sectors, and basically a lot of the financial life-blood of those nations has been hit. Were SARS to hit the US ......who knows? Our economy may take a substantial hit. Most 3rd world countries do not need to worry about that. Hence the greatest danger from sARS is not how many people it kills (or such stuff) but how many industries it shuts down.

And whether this fear is legitimate or just a surge of (LOL) 'irrational exuberance' the end effect is still the same ......financial meltdown wherever SARS takes root!

Perhaps the brightest thought on SARS is that it's mortality rate is low,

I wouldn't call 5.9%- 10% or more low!! I'd call it rather high. The WHO guys keep upping it gradually. I'd say the brightest spot is the it doesn't seem to be airborne.