U.S. virus experts slam SARS panic

Reuters - alertnet.org ^ | 28 Apr 2003 | Maggie Fox

[friendly]

HIV people are in a world of trouble with a common cold. SARS will probably kill most HIV infected dudes.

[txhurl]

Most certainly does, if A = 1 and B = 2 , etc.

[EternalHope]

Me: You may be able to get it again and again.

You: Hope you are wrong. Since it rapidly mutates (like the cold viruses it is closely related to) you may very well be correct.

I CAN'T be incorrect. I cleverly used the word "may" when I said, "You may be able to get it again and again." I have a bullet proof escape clause.

(Hey... It's not as bad as Billy Boy's comment about what the meaning of "is" is.)

[harpseal]

I would point out that China is reporting 3016 confirmrd cases of SARS which is more like 60% of the total of approximately 5000 world wide cases. the 200 odd deaths were from China which is less than 10% of the total cases but since many of the cases have not run to conclusion the 15% mortality rate is as good a number as one can come up with at present

[friendly]

No, no, no, I agree with you. (LOL)

[blam]

"I suspect a vastly laerger nunber of deaths in the Mainland than have heretofore been revealed."

I do too. I suspect the lower level commie administrators are fearful of passing the bad news up the chain of command.

[harpseal]

I take back what I had posted as I misread what you were reffering to. Your math is correct. between yesterday and today China accounted for about a 5% increase in the total number of SARS cases. Your math is correct

[Judith Anne]

Agreed.

[CathyRyan]

Just about anything said about sars should have a bullet proof escape clause with the way info changes from day to day about it.

[aristeides]

Yes, I saw that. Rats with SDA continue to shed the virus for up to four months.

[aristeides]

Rats can be reinfected with SDA repeatedly, because the virus mutates.

[friendly]

The formula for the ChiComs is one reported death = ten unreported death.

Probably similar to $1 million in ChiCom bribe money to Clinton/DNC weknow about = $10 million we don't know about.

[friendly]

You are scaring the feces out of me.

[ScholarWarrior]

I agree. Notice how cooperative the Chinese will be with North Korea.

They are going to need a lot of respiratory equipment, as well as economic cooperation in the face of zero travel.

And that's difficult to do when your people are rioting.

[txhurl]

Right. China has reported they've diagnosed ~3000 cases over five months, or an average of 20 cases/day (~ 0.8%/day), but today alone they diagnosed ~10% of their 5-month total. This is the figure that concerns me.

[JasonC]

Exactly. Panic does not hurt on the only policy issue that matters, which is beating this critter before it ever gets going. If hotels in Hong Kong lose money doing that, tough toenails. As long as people's reactions, over or not, contribute to slowing the spread of the critter instead of furthering it, let 'em overreact.

The rate of infections went linear, then less than linear, in Hong Kong in about a month. That's great, and speaks well of "panic". If we can get the same level of "panic" in China, instead of denial by people worried about economic effects, then we'll clobber this thing before it does any serious damage.

Which is after all the point. Fear or its absence, rationality or its absence, economic side effects or their absence, politics, funding, prestige - none of those are the point. They are ephermal distractions. People focusing instead of reducing its spread by whatever means, have their eye on the ball, and all the quibblers and lecturers do not.

[JasonC]

The point is not to predict the future, but to change it.

[txhurl]

You're like a zen Sandra VanOker (sp) here. Thanks.

[Steel Wolf]

Which is after all the point. Fear or its absence, rationality or its absence, economic side effects or their absence, politics, funding, prestige - none of those are the point. They are ephermal distractions. People focusing instead of reducing its spread by whatever means, have their eye on the ball, and all the quibblers and lecturers do not.

Ephermal distractions? You're speaking about the life's blood of the PRC government. Their eye is most definitely on the ball, but it's the wrong one. Their major concern is for their appearance of strength, stability, and control to be maintained. This is why they took so long to be open about SARS, and this will continue to be a factor that shows them to be both incompetent and heartless.

[_Jim]

People around the world are overreacting to SARS, creating a sense of panic ... "In some sense people like to be frightened"

Opening and closing lines - and it kind of sums up this whole situation, too. Add to that the fact that I think some people here on FR actually LIKED being the bearers of that supposedly really-bad, civilization-as-we-know-it-is-doomed news.