SARS is much worse than is being reported

Personal American friends living in Hong Kong | CometBaby

[CometBaby]

My American friends living in Hong Kong called last night. The SARS in Hong Kong is much worse than has been reported. China has been fudging on the number of cases. He said that the number of new infections have been DOUBLING DAILY. It's spreading like wildfire. It's more contageous than has been admitted and there is no cure. The schools have all closed and many workplaces are not requiring employees to come in. They expect the Airport to CLOSE .. nobody knows exactly when, and people are scrambling to get out of the country before it does. The hospitals are all full and they plan to begin to quaranteen people in their homes.

He said that walking in Hong Kong is absolutely surreal .. everyone is wearing masks. And another thing .. they are running out of masks. It's really bad.

[EternalHope]

Guess who's gotta fly to Beijing from Taiwan next Friday. (Hint--his screen name starts with a Z)

Don't go.

[sweetliberty]

"I think it's just a way of demonstrating power, to force people to change how they speak for no real good reason."

[FrdmLvr]

as I was sending, I noticed that I sent you the wrong address. Should be: www.stevequayle.com (not steven).

[EternalHope]

Fumento's article was full of errors and distortions.

As a sample, he points out that most victims in the first weeks were medical workers, thus somehow proving how little risk of infection there is. In other words, people in hospitals who take care of sick people for a living without getting sick, were getting sick from this. And he somehow thinks this proves it is not very communicable.

He had LOTS of other idiocies in his article as well. Essentially, he claimed that SARS is merely a way to sell newspapers. His article is pure BS.

[tiki]

Wear a mask.

[CobaltBlue]

OK, if you know exactly how contagious SARS is, please tell.

How many people who are exposed to it come down with it, and how many of those get pneumonia?

[Lloyd227]

You may well be correct. Please see my post at # 64

[An American In Dairyland]

"From what I read about the flu pandemic in 1918, that disease spread like wildfire due to the conditions of war"

Not from the conditions of war. World War I factored in because that was the first time so many people had been shipped all over the world, thus spreading the disease.

Today it is far worse. Air travel from Hong Kong to Toronto takes roughly 11 hours. We don't even need a war to be part of the factor now.

[Allan]

Bump

[MrLee]

Where are the Rolling Stones?????

[An American In Dairyland]

"Go to www.stevequayle.com. He should have the documentation."

If you put an "http//" in front it will automatically create a link. Like this:

http://www.stevequayle.com

[xm177e2]

It's sort of important for the government to spend money on national security... and a disease like SARS just might threaten our security, it certainly threatens other nations' health.

[An American In Dairyland]

"Yes IIRC, the Spanish Flu started in a Texas army base"

It allegedly started at Camp Funston (now Fort Reilly), Kansas. Camp Funston was probably one of the first places to openly report the illness, however, there really isn't any way to ascertain where the flu originated.

[k omalley]

Sorry dear, avoiding certain unacceptable behaviors will not protect you from this disease. All you have to do is be in a public place to contract it.

[Revolting cat!]

Hell,

Let's Panic!

[Eala]

I think it's just a way of demonstrating power, to force people to change how they speak for no real good reason.

Or of testing whether they have the power. Remember the recent effort to ban peanuts from being handed out on airplanes? I've noted the decline of peanut packages to the point where I'm about to carry my own aboard.

[Eala]

SARS has a 3.7% mortality rate but appears to be less transmissible than flu.

Please, I've been trying to get a handle on numbers on this and have found nothing but confusion.

Are you saying if one excludes those currently afflicted/infected by the disease, that 3.7% of those who caught SARS died and 96.3% recovered (albeit possibly impaired)?

Or are you saying that 3.7% of those diagnosed thus far have died?

There's a big difference between the two. Imagine a disease that takes exactly 10 years to run its course and at the end of the course it is always, 100%, fatal. Let's say it's detected one year after first onset. For 9 years, under the second definition above, it has a 0% "mortality rate"; nobody's died (yet). After 10 years the rate will start to grow, but as long as the disease exists it will never reach a mortality rate of exactly 100%, even though everyone who gets it dies of it (uless they die of something else first).

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I've seen enough of the above confusion. I'd like real answers and it seems you might have them -- I just want to be sure. (Can you provide sources for these figures, btw?)

[riri]

Additionally, I would like to know-of those people who have gotten ill and haven't died-a break down of those that are hospitalized and still not recovered, home but still not recovered, hospitalized but citical and, most importantly, if anyone has made a complete recovery and is out and about doing OK?

This is driving me crazy. Is there a chance that people out there have gotten SARS and never gotten to the point where they have been hospitalized? Does everyone who gets it end up in ICU?

[GOPJ]

No, to be a politically correct disease, a favored group of the left must be the primary victims. This is a disease that kills members of all groups. It doesn't qualify.

If that turns out to be the case liberals will replace AIDS with SARS as the next politically correct disease to expend government funds upon.

[GOPJ]

Zook, you need to stay home. Planes are an ideal place to get this disease. Do you really have to go? Can you take precautions if you must go? FreeRepublic needs you, please stay home. Please.

Guess who's gotta fly to Beijing from Taiwan next Friday. (Hint--his screen name starts with a Z)