[blam]

"During that period, well-meaning doctors were placing SARS patients in ordinary wards — as they would patients with normal pneumonia — and those patients were passing the infection on to hundreds of others. "

The easiest place to get seriously sick is a hospital.

[Judith Anne]

The doctor from Toronto who was infected by a SARS patient who was being treated for congestive heart failure would most likely agree with you...

Much earlier in this whole information cycle I wondered--what if someone incubating SARS gets appendicitis and has surgery for it around the time symptoms are starting to show...I was wondering how they would differentiate SARS from surgical complications? How many would such a patient infect before the SARS was apparent?

Also, patients with COPD, in particular, would be hard to diagnose if they got SARS--they cough all the time, get pneumonia frequently, and most often know all the hospital staff and doctor's office staff who treat them...they'd have a low index of suspicion, and could infect quite a few before the SARS status was apparent (or SARS might never be suspected until staff or other family members fell ill).