All You Need To Know About SARS

IOL ^ | 3-31-2003

[LPStar]

I think both of those are quite likely possibilities too.

[Domestic Church]

"like bovine coronavirus"

That would explain why Singapore Docs are wearing the Jupitor suits and not just NG95 masks.

[Lessismore]

From another news story --


"They are finding that the infections are in people living in apartments on top of each other, only in one area of this apartment block. It's only two apartments, but from floor zero to 35. Not all of those apartments are affected, but most of the families affected are living in that small area of that apartment building," virologist Klaus Stohr said at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

That differs from the pattern seen earlier at the Metropole Hotel, where the disease first spread to Hong Kong. There, guests staying on the ninth floor became infected.

"That was horizontal, and now you have a vertical connection," Mr. Stohr said. "You can talk about water pipes and sewage pipes, about drafts which move up and down — that's pure speculation. These are hypotheses that are being looked into."

[Prince Charles]

"I am growing suspicious. Why did this apartment building-complex get hit so hard, yet people flew on airplanes with people very ill with this sickness and only a few seem to have gotten ill. Any ideas out there on why this may be the case?"

Most airliners are ventilated in such a way that air enters at the front and is exhausted out near the back of the cabin. So, if a SARS carrier is seated near the back of the plane and doesn't get up in flight, most of his germs will flow out the back of the plane. If, OTOH, the SARS carrier is in 1st class, then his germs flow aft and contact everyone else sitting behind him. If someone breathes in enough virus particles (exact amount unknown right now) then they get SARS.

Bottom line: it all depends on air flow and seating arrangments.