Posted on 04/22/2003 9:35:20 PM PDT by Prince Charles
SARS Cases in Hong Kong Have Begun to Level Off
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG, April 22 ? The number of people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome has leveled off here in the last week, although the disease is unlikely to be eradicated for a long time, if ever, health officials said today.
Hong Kong has had more cases of the disease, known as SARS, than any other city, although Beijing is starting to catch up. There are still two dozen to three dozen new cases each day here, and Hong Kong still has almost as many people hospitalized with SARS as the entire rest of the world, including mainland China.
Yet there has been some improvement here. As recently as a week ago, some experts were warning that a rising tide of SARS patients could overwhelm hospitals, filling all of the beds in intensive care wards.
The State Department has warned that Americans who fall sick here or in China may find the medical systems already overstretched.
But the number of people in hospitals here with probable cases of SARS peaked at 960 on Thursday and has since fallen 9 percent, to 874 this afternoon. While 137 people have fallen ill with SARS in the last five days, 189 have recovered and been discharged from hospitals. Another 34 have died, most of them elderly.
Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, Hong Kong's secretary of health, welfare and food, cautioned at a news conference this afternoon, "We do not anticipate it will be eradicated completely, because it is a highly infectious virus."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That's still a 15% death rate, folks.
SARS: 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
To date, 99 people in Hong Kong have died as a result of SARS.
But thankfully, the increases are slowing. As the territory approaches 1,500 cases, I look back to the news of only two weeks ago predicting dire consequences should Hong Kong see 3,000 cases by the end of April. Barring some freak event, it certainly doesn't appear that's going to happen.
The numbers of people being released has taken large jumps in the past few days, but no one seems to be interested in those successes. Mostly what I've seen in the news is a continuation of the doom and gloom theme. I think it's high time medical workers who have been putting themselves at risk get some real honest-to-goodness coverage for the excellent job they've been doing.
Were it not for them, I suspect the death toll would be much, much higher.
Were it not for them, I suspect the death toll would be much, much higher.
Well said.
The figures presented in the story were for the 5 days preceding. And yes, 15% is the correct mortality rate for that 5-day period.
Maybe you need to spend some time with ArithmeticForever.
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