Sars
 

It is scary, and has claimed lots of death already. Today a plane was grounded in California and 2 people are hospitalized.

Makes you think again before you go outside or travel overseas.

How in the heck can something like that come up and nobody has a cure, this is a huge epidemic in Asia already and its only going to be a matter of time until it hits home

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/

It was created in a lab. (who's lab... Im not sure)

see sig

You know it,
People are keeling over like flies, Canada lost 2 more people to it. It's now in the States, in california

This stuff is scary, with aids you had to have fluid contact, that stuff however flies thru the air,,

creepy, wonder who doesn't like us in this world,, hmmmm

tap tap tap

whoah! holy crap!


just like a cold does!

lol.

lol....

I'm not all that concerned yet. 2 people in Canada died? Out of 30 million? Chances are better that I'll be struck by lightening three times tonight in my bedroom before I wake tomorrow.










Holy fuck! What the hell was that flash?!?!?

heheh..
a 3% death rate.. it's just a flu with balls.

yakub

Ok, which pornpeddler invented That virus now eh?

I will say this though, You'd think that in this day and age with international travel, when one of the worst things that could happen to humanity as a whole would be the next killer flu, and I mean reall killer flu, not SARS, that there would be some stringent quarantine protocols.. that means every person on the plane with the 3 suspected SARS sufferers has to at least work from home for 7 days with contact with medical staff.
It's insane that 100 potential carriers can be let out into the populace.. I mean you couldn't lock people away in quarantine bays, but at least stop them from going to work and make them wear a mask or something.

at least they are nowhere near you. they all live and work within 50 miles (80km) of me.

:1orglaugh
touche'

My thoughts exactly, after reading that they were able to go home i was thinking "Wonder where home is?" maybe its your neighbor.

We are about to attend a party this weekend with lots of webmasters coming from california,, tz tz

lol damn.

And think of this: I live in Vegas where millions of tourists arrive daily. You can bet if it does go on like this, Vegas will be hit big time in a short amount of time.

The moral of the story: I'd better watch my ass and wear a mask like Wacko Jacko....Wait a second...You don't think this was created in his lab do you? :Graucho

this is nothing to laugh at. i have a 4 year degree in Genetics (emphasizing viral and bacterial genetics) - this is something that been expected for a long time.

it certainly could be nothing for the moment (no doubt), but the genetics prof i did lab work for in my 3rd and 4 yr summers is *very* concerned...

so your telling me that the shit that i have making my pee pee burn is a problem?????????????

I think this 'flu' is going to wipe out every undeveloped countries population on the planet. It won't affect our anglo based countries but the rest of the goat fuckers will be gone in 5 years.


The way it works is suspect, it's just lethal enough to mass kill people without access to good hospitals but not lethal enough to really do damage to developed countries with a hospital within 50 miles for all.

Very suspicious. It is a great plan for whoever thought this one up. Very ingenious.

On another note, I have to travel cross country next week. I'm taking Amtrak instead of flying. Can you guess why.

Lets just hope this one doesn't mutate like the last one did, you know... HIV.

The flu used to be a deadly killer.

there were many. we are due for something ugly, and far-reaching.

Quiet, you actually studied this stuff so you would know the details, didn't the Spanish Flu take out like a million people in the early 1900's?

the spanish flu was nasty. i didn't study a lot of viral/baterial history, but i seem to recall that the spanish flu wrecked havoc on strong people with heathy immune systems (which was both strange and facinating)...

It looks like part 2 is here.


I'm not religious but all this is starting to get a bit creepy.

i certainly won't be taking a plane anytime soon. i'm heading to the mountains on the 4th, for at least 2 weeks...

:glugglug

Between 2.5 and 5 million people get the flu every year. 250,000 - 500,000 of them die. (WHO estimates)

no doubt. but that fact has little to do with SARS, depending.

the young and the old on the bell curve are usually most affected...

Not directly, but I don't think SARS is such a big deal. The death rate is no higher than the flu, and if anything, it appears to be less infectious.

Ok Gutterboy. You keep thinking that.

In the meantime, I will be discussing purchasing a small island with some friends of mine. I always wanted one but the way things are going it seems like a good time to have that as an option.

what makes it different is that is can be lethal to very healthy people (which is extremely rare with the flu in developed countries). also, it's still not completely ironed out as far as what is actually causing the symptoms.

it is spreading in a similar fashion to a basic cold - but when have you seen a developed country (such as Canada) have this many deaths and serious illness, in such a short time? lately, with prior notice.

two hospitals shut down. hmm. of course i doubt it will pan out to much... we did tests with bacteria taken off the walls of surgical theatres in my 4th year, that were completely immune to all known forms of antibiotics. now that's scary...

:glugglug

damn

yeah, that is scary.

What's really scary about this is, from the start, one of the first people to die was a high ranking doctor in the World Health Organization. If this is just an easily treatable flu that type of thing isn't supposed to happen. It may be related to the regular cold virus but this is definitely not to be taken lightly.

hehe, evolution in action.

I thought most of the SARS deaths had occoured in people who were already ill, or those who waited too long to get medical treatment? The WHO press release today said that with medical attention, most of the cases hospitalized in Vietnam have improved.

They also said 75 deaths / 2100 cases. Not too bad, especially if most of that +/- 5% consists of people who were already ill or who waited to get the pneumonia treated.

I don't think its something to be taken flippantly, but if you're a healthy adult with access to medical care I don't think there is anything to worry about.

I think all those Michael Crichton books about aerosolized ebola are still in the backs of peoples minds... heheh

i'm only looking at absolute deaths in developed countries, you are totally correct on the current death rate... at this point.

this would be the main issue. healthy hospital workers are at the highest risk. we'll have to wait and see. i certainly won't be on a plane anytime soon...

Yeah.. I've been watching pretty closely because I'm flying to Vegas next Sunday. Thats gotta be about the last place you want to be during an infectious disease outbreak.

Ahh.. the sweet smell of recycled casino air.

I was laughing at "How in the heck can something like that come up and nobody has a cure" and "with aids you had to have fluid contact, that stuff however flies thru the air"

I am hyper aware of these sorts of things. As I said in the other thread, I knew about it more than two weeks ago and started taking stuff to build my immune system. But comparing it to an airborne AIDS and wondering how something like SARS can pop up without a cure is just too much... I can only laugh it off, I am more than aware of the coming pandemic and the existing antibiotic resistant superbugs.

the spanish flu took 40 million in 1917-18, and as I said in the other thread a million each in '58 and '68.. with global air travel, and the opening up of the biggest flu engine to the world with China's increased global participation, the next killer flu will be a global life changing event. We're almost overdue for it.

if you think that's bad try taking a nonstop from NY to LA. If a disease breaks out you are virtually guarenteed people in both cities has it. In NY it's so crowded people can't help touching each other and in LA they are just BIG OL' FREAKS and can't stop touching each other.

Ack!

More people die of cancer, more people contract AIDS, more people contract much more deadly diseases EVERY MINUTE than people are contracting SARS WORLDWIDE every DAY, hell, every WEEK. It's been blown out of proportion because of the media attention it's recieving. The same thing happened with Hantavirus a few years ago.. yet Hantavirus is still around.. it's not a worldwide epidemic...it's still ten times more virulant than SARS. It's still even easier to GET. It's just not new "news" anymore. My daughter contracted SARS and is ok now.. (my son contracted it to a lesser degree and was much less sick). The mortality rate is less than 5% worldwide. I'm not trying to downplay it, but it REALLY is not worth the total and complete panic people are feeling. Hell, it's not nearly as deadly as the black plague, that wiped out pretty much everyone who contracted it, entire families at a time. SARS is scary, sure, but not nearly as scary as a lot of what's out there. Ever taken a close look at what Ebola does to a person? It basically melts you from the inside out.. Your internal organs liquify.. your eyes and skin bleed, and you feel every agonizing second of it. Almost NOBODY survives Ebola. Relatively few (generally speaking) die of SARS. Those who do generally have degraded immune systems already.

uh,

(1) this is brand new.
(2) it's spreading fairly quickly.

comparing it to established infections is almost completely useless...

Said this in another thread but I'll repeat since it's pertinent. Many people at the time thought the same thing of the 1918 flu. They thought it was caused by the Germans.

May I remind you that the spanish flu death rate was approx 5%

And the WHO think the death rate for the SARS is around 3-5% but it could be higher.

10 to 20% of people infected will *need* a respirator to survive.

If the spanish flu happened today, around 69 million people would die.

Then how do you explain the 218 people that got infected in the same building? A person infected (that did not know it was) visited parents a couple of times.. That's it.

A couple of days later, everyone in the building got infected.

I compiled this from CDC data.

Date Cases Deaths
4/1 1804 62
3/31 1622 58
3/29 1550 54
3/28 1485 53
3/27 1408 53
3/26 1323 49
3/25 487 17
3/24 456 17
3/22 386 11
3/21 350 10
3/20 306 10
3/19 264 9
3/18 219 4
3/17 167 4

The problem is with China. The government is hiding everything from the public and it's extremely hard for the scientists to get information about the outbreak. This means the cases could be higher. Yesterday we learned that 9 more people died from SARS. This bring the number of death to 75

No newspaper in China is mentionning the SARS outbreak and if you search SARS on google in China, you'll get a 404.

Damn communists.. :1orglaugh This is not helping their cause.

Comparitively, it's not spreading quickly. You have to be exposed to it for HOURS (generally in an enclosed place) to actually contract it.. It's certainly not spreading as quickly as AIDS. And yes it's brand new, but they've isolated it as a coronavirus. A strain of the common cold. More vicious, yes, but not anything unmanagable by today's standards... Hell, the damn thing would have died out if this was 100 years ago and worldwide travel by airplane was not an option. The only reason it seems to "spread quickkly" is because worldwide travel in a short period of time IS possible. And really, consider the number of people who travel on airplanes every day... Now consider the small percentage of those who've actually come into contact with SARS. Peanuts, comparitively.

There are what, over a BILLION people in China? A few THOUSAND cases of SARS isn't even has worrysome to them as an outbreak of the common flu. It's minor, relatively speaking.

Reading suggestion: The Plague by Camus :glugglug

And if it wasn't SARS, or Spanish Flu, it would be something else. It's nature cleaning house. There is ALWAYS some bad disease, some horrible illness that's poised to destroy humanity. It was just never as publicized before. Hell even 30 years ago nobody would have given a shit and it would all have gone away.. Or it would have killed a bunch of people. Only difference is people are more out "in the world" today so they're more likely to be in contact with infected people. In essence, it's our own society that has caused these epidemics, if you think about it.

i'm too tried to make a full response. tomorrow. but you are wrong. especially comparing it hiv (not aids lol). doesn't make any sense - silly in fact. might as well compare it to cancer.

bah...

AIDS.