The Fabulous World of Fact, Factoid and SARS (Wonderland)

Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, May 23, 2003 | DANIEL HENNINGER

[presidio9]

Why does anyone go to horror movies anymore? A week's worth of news seems scary enough. SARS, which can kill you, is a household word. So is mad-cow disease. Also this week the government started flying the Code Orange terror warning again. Al Qaeda is back, blowing up buildings and people in Saudi Arabia, and suicide bombers are again killing civilians in Israel. And of course North Korea, having contracted mad-man disease, may be loading nuclear bombs onto ballistic missiles.

[EternalHope]

The author has a credible point to make, and underlined it with his own outdated information.

The 4.9% mortality rate he cited is several weeks out of date. We have much more detailed information to work with now. An overall mortality rate of 14% to 15% is the current consensus, and over 50% for people older than age 60.

The author went to what a reasonable person would assume was a credible source. Information about SARS, however, is moving pretty fast. The author of this editorial was not personally familiar enough with SARS to realize the information he got was already obsolete.