Six Months to Act

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, April 25, 2003 | By DONALD S. BURKE

[FairOpinion]

One of the things I found interesting is the statement that the Spanish flu was killing young healthy people at the same rate as the ones who would normally be considered more at risk, which shows that it was something highly lethal.

Also it seemed to be killing people very quickly, you felt ill in the morning and dead by evening.

Do you happen to have any statistics on the age group of the SARS victims?

[Future Useless Eater]

>>statistics on the age group of the SARS victims?

It's been out there numerous times...
I vaguely recollect
>50% mortality for retirees
15-20% for middle-age to retirement
5-10% young adults
<5% children

try google searches for sars and mortality and you should
find better numbers.

[FairOpinion]

This is close enough. I guess SARS is not killing as many young people, so it's not as virulent as the Spanish Flu was.

[Prince Charles]

Some people who felt well in the morning became sick by noon, and were dead by nightfall.

Now that's a fast killer!

[Prince Charles]

Do you happen to have any statistics on the age group of the SARS victims?

Do a keyword search on "fatalityrate".

[Future Useless Eater]

yes, in hong kong they studied it thoroughly.
go to
http://sarsreference.com

and click on the link for epidemeology

The age groups for the 'probable' cases right now in
Taiwan are even younger, so you'd think they would have
a relatively low death rate. But NO, because Taiwan is
cheating and reporting only their critical cases as
'probables', their death rates (for 'probable's)
are much worse.

for the Taiwan age brackets go to
http://www.cdc.gov.tw/sarsen/

then click on "FIND OUT MORE"
then scroll down for their charts of age groups

[Future Useless Eater]

oops, that last one should have been to you

(age groups in hong kong and taiwan)

[aristeides]

I read some place lately that the Spanish flu of 1918 had over an 80% mortality among the Eskimos. (American Indians allegedly did worse than Caucasians too, but I forget the figure among them.)

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping

[iceskater]

Next winter, we may not be so lucky. If influenza and SARS epidemics strike simultaneously, confusion will reign.

This is an understatement, to say the least.