SARS is a much LOWER threat than the media would have us believe. From the New York Times:
GUANGZHOU, China, April 27 ? The outbreak of a new respiratory disease has inflicted the greatest blow to the Chinese economy since the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989, causing a plunge in retail sales, a slump in demand for some Chinese exports and a near-collapse in domestic and foreign tourism.
J. P. Morgan Chase, which does investment banking in China, estimates that after expanding at a torrid annual rate of 9.9 percent in the first quarter, the Chinese economy is actually shrinking at an annual rate of 2 percent in the second quarter.
That's called panic. Beijing has become a hollow city because everybody's gone all freaky, that's bad for the economy. On top of that our own media has created such a frenzy of paranoia that tourism to Asia has dropped to nil (again, very similar th FA in the summer of 2001) which is also bad for the economy. Something that hasn't even killed 300 people in 6 months worldwide simply does not warrant the paranoia SARS is generating. You were more likely to win the lottery in the last 6 months than die of SARS. Seriously overhyped.