[USNBandit]

Okay, I'll go, but I want superduper expanded cable and a lot of In N Out burgers. Hey, I said onions

[Calpernia]

BUMP!

Ping!

[Principled]

I had t read a while before I saw the location:

SAN FRANCISCO.

[I'll be your Huckleberry]

Is this the same hospital?

[bannie]

IF I found myself with a deadly, extremely contageous disease, I would REQUEST isolation to protect others.

When I was young, I read a book about Typhoid Mary. I found her to be horribly selfish--to say the least!

I consider insisting on your "rights" when in this situation, to be close to attempted murder.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Failure to go in to quarantine upon showing symptoms of this disease is tantamount to murder.

[cherry]

I know of an older doctor who said bluntly that if we had treated HIV as a disease, and isolated people, we wouldn't be in this trouble with AIDS....

we can force isolation on some but others are politically protected...

[flutters]

Morrow said of the 400 suspected cases that have been reported in the U.S., only about seven have been confirmed. None of the suspected or probable cases in San Mateo County have been proven.

I bet the research for this article was done a long time ago, but just printed today. It's doesn't contain the latest stats.

[CathyRyan]

New SARS case ID'd in County
By Jean Whitney, STAFF WRITER
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- Public health officials said late Wednesday that a suspected case of SARS turned up at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in a middle-aged man who had traveled to Taiwan.
"It looks like SARS," according to San Mateo County Health Services Director Margaret Taylor. The illness had not been confirmed as SARS by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by late Wednesday.

Taylor said the SARS victim had broken a customary agreement to voluntary isolation at home, on Wednesday afternoon. The man, who was not named, was being kept isolated at the hospital, she said.

It was unclear Wednesday night whether he would be quarantined -- a legally imposed isolation.

"We don't want to endanger public health," Taylor said. "That is first and foremost. We have to act. We can't have someone wandering around."

The County's other two probable and three suspected SARS patients, who complied with at-home isolation, were not quarantined, and all recovered.

The last County case of probable SARS was in a 3-year-old girl who had traveled through Hanoi's airport.

The Bush administration added SARS to the list of diseases that warrant legal quarantine shortly after the emergence of the disease in February.

In the past, County individuals with active tuberculosis have been quarantined, Taylor added.

California has had 71 cases of SARS, with 21 of those defined as probable and 50 suspected. Two of the probable cases were confirmed as SARS by the CDC.

SARS was found to be a form of coronavirus, similar to the common cold. It is characterized by fever and cough, and can quickly move into a pneumonia-like illness and even death.

In the U.S. to date, there have been 69 probable cases of SARS and 303 suspected, with no deaths reported, according to the CDC.

Worldwide, since the disease was uncovered in a southern Chinese province nearly five months ago, there have been 772 deaths attributed to SARS and at least 8,402 cases, according to the World Health Organization.

The majority of fatalities from SARS have been in China. including Taiwan, with others in Canada, Singapore and Vietnam Staff writer Jean Whitney covers County government. She can be reached at 306-2428 or by e-mail at jwhitney@angnewspapers.com .