Posted on 04/06/2003 2:40:48 PM PDT by Lessismore
Personally i think this SARS sporadic emergence is just the start of a larger epidemic to come. And it will not only bode detriment to the health of those afflicted but it will also strike economically and socially.
A good example og what i mean by this (and one that is ignored by those who think it is a UN/WHO stratagem to preserve their relevance) can be seen by looking at Hong Kong.
People are walking with surgical masks on their faces! Televised reports show people walking like the very air around them was rife with murderous pathogens! Almost as if instead of SARS it was Ebola that was flitting around!
Furthermore there has been mass emigration out of Hong Kong, especially among the expatriate and immigrant groups (and with this emigration is also some capital flight which might lead to financial consequences down the line).
And then there is the Hang Seng index. It has taken a significant down turn due to all this SARS stuff. No economy likes unforeseen variables like disease epidemics jumping into the fray.
And now with the fact of easy global travel this ailment should spread across the globe quite fast (or, severe travel restrictions could be implemented, which would help in stopping the disease but in the process seriously affect the travel industry and airlines). Basically this SARS 'thing' is more serious than some freepers are trying to make it. And these naysayers may have to swallow their words if a SARS breakout hits a place like NEw York city or any other place in the US that has many people living in extremely compact environs.
A disease does not have to have a 100% fatality (SARS has, for now, a 3.5% fatality ratio) to be detrimentaly effective. All it has to do is make an impact, and if it were to make the same impact in the US as it has made in Hong Kong then everything from our airline industry to the stock market is going to have to swallow a lot of bile and gloom.
I think there are some who are making SARS to be more than it is ..........but they are not off by far (just look at what is happening in Hong Kong ...it is insane, literally). Then there are those who say SARS is just some sniffles blown out of proportion ......but they may be in for a surprise once the 'sniffles' hit the US.
The Corona viruses I know of are mostly GI. I wonder if chicken or turkey Chlamydia has adapted to human hosts - lots of stories of how mainland tenant farmers keep poultry in their houses.
SARS is infectious, but by close contact. Stay home and you'll be fine.
As the weeks pass i am sure other links and theories will pop up. Until then your guess is as good as mine.
As for it being G1 (i believe you are referring to group 1) i am not sure, but probably in my opinion would be together with Influenza (that i believe ....i might be wrong ....is a G2 pathogen. Ebola,Marburg and other haemorrhagic viruses, by comparison, are group 4 pathogens).
SARS is not as bad as Ebola obviously, but it is able to spread quite fast. The terror of scientists is a virus with the potency of Ebola (an exceedingly high deathrate which comes in an extremely graphic manner ....think bleeding from every pore and orifice in your body) that also has the infection-spread capability of the Flu, and does not kill extremely fast!
The last point is important because the great thing about Ebola is that it is a very fast killer! It is so deadly that all who are infected die so quickly that the virus does not spread far beyond its locality! Now imagine if there was a virus with the lethal potency of Ebola, could spread through droplet ...or even worse was totally airborne .......and did not kill its host too quickly, allowing it to spread more efficiently!
With global transport and a small world the whole thing could hit every major metropolitan area long before the CDC, and its counterparts, smelt anything rotten! And if it had the lethality of Ebola (the most virulent strain is over 90% lethal ....and there is no cure, obviously LOL) then we would be looking at a death toll that is basically straight out of the book of Revelations in the Bible.
Estimates show that the human race would probably face its greatest threat ever! Not all would die ....but some models have shown that the deathtoll would be immense ....in the billions (especially if you factor in secondary diseases .....for example the mass of bodies, that would obviously not be buried, would lead to things like Cholera, dysentry, and other nasties that are really nto nice ........and then the smell!)
Now, SARS is nothing compared to that extreme! Not even close. But the scary thing about SARS is something scientists have been saying for decades! That as the world continues becoming smaller and travelling is fast then ailments that were previously trapped in some Asian swamp or brazilian jungle would be released into the whole world! The emrgence of AIDS, ebola, Marburg, and now SARS (if you read the 'Hot Zone' they have a list of viruses that have emerged from the forests of Africa, Asia and S. America that is very long). It is just a matter of time, i guess, before something that is really nasty comes out.
And that is why SARS bothers me ....because it shows new stuff is still coming out. SARS by itself is not that horrible ......although it has seriosuly hit the Hong Kong Hang Seng index and affected various socio-economic factors there. It is bad ....but it is not an air-borne hemorrhagic fever virus!
My personal nightmare is this: Ebola Zarie is the most virulent Ebola strain .....well over 90% fatality (small pox does not even come close to that). And 90% is even if you are in the best medical facility in the world! And you bleed from all your orifices, you sweat blood, your eyes turn black and red, you vomit up your intestines as it sloughs off (it is called black vomit), your internal organs start to liquefy, and all this happens while you are still alive!
Now, think of Ebola Zaire ....and then move on to Ebola Reston!
Ebola Reston is an ebola strain (instead of Africa this one came from the Asian jungles). The good thing is that it only affects monkeys, hence humans are safe. The bad thing .....and this is very bad .....is that ebola Reston is airborne! Not just heavy droplet but airborne. Meaning someone does not have to cough sputum at your face but simply be in your proximity!
Now picture this! There are several strains of Ebola. The most virulent human strain is E. zaire. Then i believe E. Sudan is a close second. None of them are airborne. The other hemorrhagic fevers afflicting humans, like Marburg (which is also pretty nasty) are also not airborne.
E. Reston is fully airborne ....but it snacks on monkeys and hence we are safe from it.
What if, and this is not such a big if, there was an Ebola strain that targeted humans AND was airborne? What if lurking in the Guatemalan jungle, or an african cave, or an asian mangrove swamp was such a virus?
Or what if your 'everyday' E.Zaire mutated and became airborne? Viruses mutate a lot ....actually the big problem with all viruses when it comes to their treatment is that they can mutate so easily by making minute changes to their protein coat that effective medicine is really not possible. That is why there are no medicines that can cure the flu, the common cold, HIV, Ebola! Hence what if E.Zaire suddenly, by some twist of fate, made a slight adjustment in its protein coat that made it airborne?
Obviously this is speculation on my part ......but ask the CDC and they can tell you what i described is EXACTLY what they most fear. And there is nothing they can do about it.
As we stand it is basically hoping there is no such virus out there ......and if there is then that it never makes it out of whatever jungle or cave it resides in.
True, asians in certain cities over there use masks .......after all they are in extremely 'close proximity.' However there was a documentary today on SARS and this was different! There is a huge panic going on in Hong Kong over SARS and people are behaving in very strange manners! Mass emigration, capital flight, the Hang Seng index biting the bullet. And the number wearing masks on the street are more than those who are not ....at least on all the footage shown. And then there are those who have stoppped going to work!
Obviously much of this is due to over-reaction and blind panic ......which can be as bad, or worse (in the case of SARS) than the actual ailment.
Concerning SARS i am worried what it would do to the US economy if it hit here than how many it would kill (because the deaths would not be many). That is my specific fear concerning sARS.
The bigger fear, however, is what i depicted in post no.# 12 .....SARS just being yet another harbinger of mystery viruses sprouting forth and spreading. Who knows, maybe the next 'what is that' virus will be a true killer.
Is that a type of herpes virus? When I started grad. school, a technician in one of the labs I worked at for a few weeks told me of a researcher in Florida who contracted a lethal herpes virus infection from a monkey while it was undergoing surgery. The moral of the tech's story was to be especially careful when working with monkey cells. I still work with them, and they are handled as biohazards, as are the human cells.
If people knew some of the stuff that occurs furtively they would probably faint out of fright! Sometimes being oblivious is a good thing!
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