How far should we go? The debate has already started in Canada, are we soon going to see forced quarantines and calls for "braceleting" in the US?
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?ID=37073&GRP=A http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?ID=37072&GRP=A It is reality now in Taiwan now that the government's control of the disease is slipping. My wife and I were watching the local news last night. There was a woman at the hospital screaming out the window. She apparently threw down a message. One side said "I want to return home." I didn't see the other side on TV clearly enough to read the characters. My wife and I BOTH agree with the measures taken and actually, they are not enough. SARS is now a serious concern here in Taiwan, though only in Taibei and Yilan at the present time. We are prepared though if it gets to Taizhong (we have already bought our masks and other supplies).
Without diminishing the suffering and difficulties of our Canadian and Chinese readers, it is ipersonally quite frightening to contemplate what measures will be taken in the U.S. when not if SARS begins to spread here. From the Globe and Mail: Such clear thinking. Any bets on how long such reasonable arguments will last after the first 100 cases in NYC, or Seattle? It's the bracelet for you Bubba. Call out the National Guard. 9-Dawn curfew and "shoot to kill" the violators. Dr. John Ashcroft is on the case.
This disease has killed hundreds, and has the potential to kill FAR MORE if it is not contained. This doesn't spead like AIDS, it spreads FAR MORE easily, and apparently it mutates rather quickly as well. If not contained now, this represents a definate threat to life as we know it (especially here in Asia). Quite frankly, forced quarantines ARE justified in areas where the virus has known to have spread. Remember, it takes ten days just for symptoms of this virus to show up. Imagine how many people a single person can expose this virus to in a ten day period in cities like New York, Seattle, or heck even here in Taizhong with one million people.
I say we forget about SARS. If we don't pay attention, it'll get bored and go away. Forget restricting civil liberties. If it spreads, oh well, it must be part of some kind of plan.
SARS is already on the list of diseases that can call for a patient to be quarantined. It was added to the list on April 4th, and rightly so.
It's got a fatality rate of 3%, according to the CDC. This should be treated like any other outbreak of influenza - the panic I've been reading about reminds me of the killer bee scare.
Even if the fatality rate is 3%, if it is infectuous enough to infect, say 20% of the population, that's a about 1.5 million people dead, which will certainly have massive negative effects. At what point does it become justified to subject people to mass quarentines over it?
The fatality rate is higher in Asia, between 6 and 8 percent in the hardest hit countries. The latest overall figure I heard was 5.7 percent, this from a Hong Kong source. This is easily infectous, easily mutates, and is symptoms are not evident for up to ten days post infection.
This SARS thing is killing my vacation. I can't believe they ended the Shanghai Auto show early, I had tickets to that. Anyways, it's so stuffy here in this city at this time of the year, can't wait to get back to NYC.
Nah, who wants to go back to NYC when they've been to Shanghai? Anyway, which part of the city are you staying.
China will never voluntarily rid itself of SARS. It's had over 12 weeks to disarm and has chose not to do so. Instead of working with international inspectors to deal with this threat, it has concelled the truth and endangers the world community. We can no longer sit idlely by as this threat continues to grow. If China does not remove itself of SARS in the next 48 hours, we will do it for them. THe United States will not allow terrorists to strike in our homes, we must take this fight to them. And we will. Who's with me people?!?! It's time to invade China and remove this threat from the international community!
Yes, we must invade China NOW! You're either with us or against us! If you ask any questions, the disease has already won!
Comedy gold, fellas. I consider myself a "civil libertarian", I guess. If SARS is as contagious and deadly as everyone is saying (and I'm guessing the truth doesn't quite live up to the hype), then I've got no problem with forced quarantine of infected persons. Anything more than that, and you induce mass hysteria. Which seems to be the preferred state for most Americans.
Doesn't it. Last year it was West Nile, the year before that Anthrax. ***Wild Conspiracy Alert*** We should invade China, SARS may have been a creation of the Chinese government to get a natural population reduction, but then they lost control. The Chinese government over burdened with their close to 2 Billion citizenry could use something like this to reduce their population and not be questioned. And why did the Chinese not report it for 3 months? Saddam was atleast able to control his biological crap, let's invade.
Stephen King novels are based in the same reality as my previous post. The media also loves this sensationalism, that's the problem. I say we wait and see, when your co-workers begin to expire in front of you we can decide if action is needed.
Au contraire, as they say in Freedonia. Corin Nemec aka "Parker Lewis" was miscast as Hawk, for my money. Substitute "medical professionals" for "inspectors", and do let them work. From the little I've read, you've got far more to worry about if you're old, infirm, or a child. Or two of those. I'll let the CDC and WHO handle it, and worry about it when I have to.
China doesn't have any oil well fires we can pay Halliburton to put out and SARS doesn't destroy infrastructure that we can pay Bechtel to rebuild.
This is an absolutely critical issue in terms of appropriate public health response to an infectious disease. Diseases that kill the very young, the very old and the unhealthy cause much tragedy but have relatively small impacts on the society as a whole. Diseases that kill healthy adults can lead to disproportionate social and economic disruption. Example: In Richard McNeil's Plague's and People's, there is an appendix in which a colleague combed over a couple thousand years worth of Chinese historical records to identify previously unrecognized plague episodes. He found one because some Mandarin reported that 98% of the taxpayers in his district had died. Just think what that would do to economic activity, to say nothing of your shrinking tax base. If what Dan saw is correct, and the death rate is dramatically lower among healthy adults, then public health campaigns would be more effective and less costly in political and economic terms. Even if we are looking at a 1918 Flu scenario, the relevant authorities should be reasonably sure that their measures will actually help. OK, everyone can go back to the comedy stuff now.