I think their government has an attitude that they can afford a lot of deaths. This is the old way. Unfortunately, they are trying to play globally and everyone else is trying to get them to do the right thing.
I defer you you on the j-curve model, so lets wait a month and check the numbers.
I do believe that over the century this will be a small blip.
Yeah, SARS has been around since November. If it were really as bad as some have suggested - i.e. one person infecting whole office buildings by simply exhaling - simple exponential extrapolation would mean tens of millions of cases by now. IMO this indicates two possibilities:
1. SARS is not a genuine airborne virus that travels from nose to nose and mouth to mouth.
2. SARS virus has already touched a much bigger population than China admits, but for whatever reason it's life-threatening to only a small minority.