Posted on 04/08/2003 6:52:15 AM PDT by CathyRyan
A physician at Beijing's Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital (No. 301) in a signed statement provided to TIME, says that at one Beijing hospital alone, 60 SARS patients have been admitted of whom seven have died. That indicates the number of patients infected with SARS in Beijing may be significantly higher than those totals made public by China's Ministry of Health. Last Thursday Chinese Minister of Health Zhang Wenkang announced to the press that China's capital had seen just 12 cases of SARS of whom three had died. Today's edition of the official China Daily put the number of SARS infections in Beijing at 19 with four dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
And do you believe
our officials are telling
all of us the truth?
Officially, here,
there have been zero SARS deaths.
Even months ago,
however, people
were contracting -- and dying
from -- a flu-like bug.
I'm sure the Chinese
are down-playing things. I fear
it's bad here, as well.
The misinfo spewed by the communists is great.
Still, SARS is over hyped and nothing for people to worry about unnecessarily.
Sounds like a higher death rate than 3%.
It may be that this ends up being nothing, and it may be that it is big but fizzles out, but we have to remember something important: the early presenters get the most comprehensive treatment. The 10,000th patient to present is not going to get the same care as the 10th or the 100th. There just aren't enough ventilators.
So, while increased understanding of the causes may improve care, if we don't have a handle on this by the time the ventilators are all occupied, the death toll is going to end up being much higher than 3% or 11% (as in 7 out of 60).
There's no need to panic, but I think a vigilant devotion to the development of this story is warranted.
Time | Cases | Increase | Dispositon of Cases | Dead as % of cases at prior times | |||||||||||||||||
Day | Date | New | Week | Total | Day | Week | Hospital | % | Recover | % | Dead | % | Day ago | 3 Day | 5 Day | Week | 2 Week | ||||
Wed | 03/19 | 150 | |||||||||||||||||||
Thu | 03/20 | 23 | 173 | 15.3% | |||||||||||||||||
Fri | 03/21 | 30 | 203 | 17.3% | |||||||||||||||||
Sat | 03/22 | 19 | 222 | 9.4% | |||||||||||||||||
Sun | 03/23 | 25 | 247 | 11.3% | |||||||||||||||||
Mon | 03/24 | 13 | 260 | 5.3% | |||||||||||||||||
Tue | 03/25 | 26 | 286 | 10.0% | |||||||||||||||||
Wed | 03/26 | 30 | 166 | 316 | 10.5% | 110.7% | |||||||||||||||
Thu | 03/27 | 51 | 194 | 367 | 16.1% | 112.1% | |||||||||||||||
Fri | 03/28 | 58 | 222 | 425 | 15.8% | 109.4% | |||||||||||||||
Sat | 03/29 | 45 | 248 | 470 | 10.6% | 111.7% | 10 | 2.1% | 2.4% | 3.2% | 3.8% | 4.5% | |||||||||
Sun | 03/30 | 60 | 283 | 530 | 12.8% | 114.6% | 13 | 2.5% | 2.8% | 3.5% | 4.5% | 5.3% | |||||||||
Mon | 03/31 | 80 | 350 | 610 | 15.1% | 134.6% | 15 | 2.5% | 2.8% | 3.5% | 4.7% | 5.8% | |||||||||
Tue | 04/1 | 75 | 399 | 685 | 12.3% | 139.5% | 16 | 2.3% | 2.6% | 3.4% | 4.4% | 5.6% | |||||||||
Wed | 04/2 | 23 | 392 | 708 | 3.4% | 124.1% | 603 | 85.2% | 89 | 12.6% | 16 | 2.3% | 2.3% | 3.0% | 3.8% | 5.1% | 10.7% | ||||
Thu | 04/3 | 26 | 367 | 734 | 3.7% | 100.0% | 619 | 84.3% | 98 | 13.4% | 17 | 2.3% | 2.4% | 2.8% | 3.6% | 4.6% | 9.8% | ||||
Fri | 04/4 | 27 | 336 | 761 | 3.7% | 79.1% | 645 | 84.8% | 99 | 13.0% | 17 | 2.2% | 2.3% | 2.5% | 3.2% | 4.0% | 8.4% | ||||
Sat | 04/5 | 39 | 330 | 800 | 5.1% | 70.2% | 673 | 84.1% | 107 | 13.4% | 20 | 2.5% | 2.6% | 2.8% | 3.3% | 4.3% | 9.0% | ||||
Sun | 04/6 | 42 | 312 | 842 | 5.3% | 58.9% | 704 | 83.6% | 116 | 13.8% | 22 | 2.6% | 2.8% | 3.0% | 3.2% | 4.2% | 8.9% | ||||
Mon | 04/7 | 41 | 273 | 883 | 4.9% | 44.8% | 733 | 83.0% | 127 | 14.4% | 23 | 2.6% | 2.7% | 3.0% | 3.2% | 3.8% | 8.8% | ||||
Tue | 04/8 | 45 | 243 | 928 | 5.1% | 35.5% | 765 | 82.4% | 138 | 14.9% | 25 | 2.7% | 2.8% | 3.1% | 3.4% | 3.6% | 8.7% | ||||
Averages | 39 | 294 | 9.6% | 96.1% | 83.9% | 13.6% | 2.4% | 2.6% | 3.1% | 3.7% | 4.6% | 9.2% |
The 3% was a number used early in the course of the outbreak. It came from mathematical geniuses who simply divided the number of deaths by the number of cases.
People (and reporters) seemed oblivious to the fact that the vast majority of vicitms had just gotten the disease and were still in the hospital. Many of the victims were in intensive care, and some were certain to die.
In spite of the obvious idiocy of this approach, the 3% stuck. News reports now tend to cite 4%, but the underlying mathematical approach is still the same.
It is too soon to know the death rate, but it's not 3% and it's not 4% either.
As you and CathyRyan have pointed out, the death rate once the hospitals are overwhelmed will be a lot different than it is now, too.
China has mishandled the outbreak horribly, and we have no reliable information on the situation there. Hence, Hong Kong is the best place to look for statistics.
Hong Kong is making heroic efforts to put this thing back in its box. If it is under control in Hong Kong two months from now, then I think the rest of the world (except China) will have a good shot at keeping the lid on this thing. Otherwise, we will get a look at what SARS can really do.
Asia seems so far away to most Americans that what happens there is not considered relevant to most Americans. However, I guarantee it will not seem far away if SARS gets established in the slums of Mexico City.
Of the 60 who were sick enough to need hospitalization, 7 have died. We do not know how many people were exposed-but-immune and how many got mildly sick and never saw a doc about it (and thus were never reported).
This is the best argument in favor of a lower mortality rate. We do not know enough to answer this question at this time, but the experience at Prince of Wales Hospital may be a clue.
A good portion of the staff got SARS. However, there were NO reports of mild illness in the rest of the staff. It seems unlikely that the disease would not have made at least some people mildly sick, but the lack of reported mild illnesses would seem to indicate that people in this category were not prevalent.
In a related item, the U.S. CDC reports a case of a person with a mild case of SARS, not thought serious enough for hospitalization, who nevertheless infected others. These others were made seriously ill.
The CDC cited this as evidence in two key areas. One is that the disease did not seem to be burning itself out, since mild cases would not cause severe illness if the mildness of the carrier's case was due to weakening of the virus. The second point made by the CDC was that the case provided evidence supporting quarantine of those suspected of being possible carriers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.