No SARS testing at U.S. airports

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Tuesday, April 8, 2003 | By Paul Sperry

[aristeides]

CDC getting record calls on SARS .

[joesnuffy]

U.S. health officials have advised airport immigration inspectors to admit foreign travelers from Asian countries hit hard by a deadly new pneumonia bug – even if they show symptoms of infection, U.S. inspectors complain.

Tommy Thompson...the same genius who proclaimed that there were going to be MANDATORY small pox vaccinations whether you liked it or not.. (in Wi his lackey Greg Undereheim State Rep Oshkosh Wi. claimed anyone who didnt like it was looney etc)

Must now be responsible for allowing Asians who are SYMPTOMATIC of SARS to be admitted to America...

Kinda a traitorus act if this stuff is contagious and fatal isnt it?...

of course the small pos epidemic didnt manifest itself...much to the chagrin of power hungry beurocrats...

Perhaps SARS is their second chance?... I do know the borders are porus enough...even the immigration people are upset by this..according to the article

[unspun]

One can specify that people from certain nations will not be allowed to deplane without "a note from their doctor" in the prior 48 hours indicating that he/she has found no symptoms of SARS -- and since they must have that in order to get thru customs, the folks at the point of departure should not choose to allow them on the plane in the first place.

(If necessary though, we could foot the bill to send the "WOP's" back.)

[discostu]

So basically you want to move the quarantine over to somebody else's country. Make them lock up all their outgoing people for 48 hours to determine they have no symptoms of SARS. All your doing is shifting the impossible task to another country. Or forcing them to line up a bunch of "doctors" in their international airports to lie and say everybody is symptom free. Once again completely ineffective and doesn't address any of the basic problems:
How do you know somebody has SARS?
How long does it take to know somebody has SARS?
How long must SARS incubate before any test will know somebody has SARS?
Where will everybody be stored while we're deciding if they have SARS?

You're now back to the original answer which can't work, mass testing, only your shifting the duty over to the Chinese government instead of ours. That's no solution.

[unspun]

No. Not completely ineffective. Suppose this wasn't SARS, but it was a highly contagious and deadly hemorrhagic fever. C'est la vie? Laissez Faire? Too much hassle. Too costly. Better to "die and reduce the surplus population...."

[discostu]

The same question apply REGARDLESS of the name of the disease:
Can it be tested for?
How long does the test take?
How long is the incubation period before it'll show up on test?
Where do you put everybody until the incubation and testing periods are done?

As long as there isn't an effective test for it ALL plans are 100% GARAUNTEED to be COMPLETELY ineffective. With the tests you then must store everybody somewhere until the incubation period is done, then you have to test them and keep them until the test results are in. That is the ONLY way to stop a disease from entering. Anything else is just pissing in the wind and is will do nothing but waste time and money on hollow feel good efforts that are COMPLETELY ineffective.

[Dont Tread On Me Eh?]

Then there's the option of just banning people from certain nations for a time. There are options

The third-highest rate of SARS in the world is in Canada - with the amount of trade ($1.25 billion DAILY) between the U.S. and Canada, it's utterly absurd to consider closing that border.

[riri]

with the amount of trade ($1.25 billion DAILY) between the U.S. and Canada, it's utterly absurd to consider closing that border

What makes all that trade occur in the first place is commerce. No one is going to be buying, building or selling anything if everyone is too afraid to leave their house, hospitalized or dead. This thing is a fiasco anyway you slice it, if it can't be contained.

[unspun]

I find your scenario needlessly perfectionistic.

[discostu]

I don't have a scenario, I'm pointing out the absolute minimum that a scenario MUST have in order to accomplish ANYTHING. If you can't test for SARS you can't stop it at the border, period. If you can test for SARS you'll only be able to stop it the border if you can stop the people with it long enough to get the test results, period. You'll only stop fresh victims (ie people that caught if from somebody else on the plane or in their departure airport) if you can keep them through the incubation period before giving the test, period. If you're going to be keeping all these people during the incubation and testing period and you want the test to actually accomplish something you'll have to keep them quarentined away from the general populace, period. Anything less than that cannot accomplish ANYTHING, period.

The thread was started because somebody at WND is aghast that testing isn't being done, well what I've outlined above is what MUST happen for any effective form of testing. Anybody not willing to go that route doesn't really want testing, they want to bitch and complain.

This is the MINIMUM, nowhere near perfection. If you want perfectionistic I can start getting into the decon procedures that will need to be run on the airport and airplanes to stop lingering infections, but currently we have no data on SARS indicating that kind of stuff would be necessary. Haven't even gotten into treatment procedures and decontamination methods for medical professionals involved in treatment, that's perfection. Sealed treatment wards with only rubber glove access from positive preasure rooms, that's perfection. My questions are the basics that must be considered for minor effectiveness.