SARS case 2 MILES away from my house (Florida)

[Hayashi]

Originally posted by Bahamut: whoa... well what Animal said is 100% true. And the problem also is... let's say you have a strong immune system or a strong body in general, while you may not be affected by the virus, you can be a carrier and infect other people and you don't know it... sad...

Well, I live in a country that's quite badly hit by the SARS outbreak, butlife goes on as normal (witha few added precautions of course).

AFAIK the medical community is saying that until a person comes down with symptoms, he/she is not infectious. Furthermore the disease can only be passed on by close contact with an infected person.

I know it's not much of comfort, but SARS is a totally new disease to medical science. But if it were as infectious as say the flu, lots more people here in Singapore would be infected.

Look up the following websites for more info:

http://www.who.int
http://www.sars.gov.sg

[Djinn Raffo]

SARS is a scam. More people die of the flu.

Don't believe the hype.

[Dundee Slaytern]

Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: SARS is a scam. More people die of the flu. Don't believe the hype.

Only because we have taken measures to contain it. If we had acted non-chalantly about it, the number of cases would have been much higher. Would you prefer to wait until more people died of SARS than Influenza before we take action?

[Djinn Raffo]

Originally posted by Dundee Slaytern: Only because we have taken measures to contain it. If we had acted non-chalantly about it, the number of cases would have been much higher. Would you prefer to wait until more people died of SARS than Influenza before we take action?

Yes.

[Harkoliar]

quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Dundee Slaytern: Only because we have taken measures to contain it. If we had acted non-chalantly about it, the number of cases would have been much higher. Would you prefer to wait until more people died of SARS than Influenza before we take action? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes.

personally, i prefer prevention than getting it first.. saves us alot of trouble in medical bills...

[Reeka]

You can be vaccinated for the flue, and even if it is another strain of the flue, I think your case will be milder. There is no vaccine for SARS and it is killing healthy young people. I believe they said the virus is related to the "common cold" virus and we all know that they have never found anything to combat that.

[Animal]

Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: SARS is a scam. More people die of the flu. Don't believe the hype.

The estimated impact to Toronto alone is $1 Billion in lost revenues due to SARS. This isn't a scam.

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Animal: quote: Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: SARS is a scam. More people die of the flu. Don't believe the hype.

The estimated impact to Toronto alone is $1 Billion in lost revenues due to SARS. This isn't a scam. [/QUOTE]How much is the economic impact due to SARS itself, of fear about SARS, though? Not to trivialise the seriousness of SARS because of course any disease that can be fatal for which there is no cure is serious, but from what I have heard from numerous sources, it is reasonably difficult to contract it, and most people that have are people close to those infected, like family or health workers. Like the flu or a cold, if you just walk past someone in the street who has it you're unlikely to catch it. As well, only 5% of people with it actually die from it (if that's inaccurate, please correct me [img]smile.gif[/img] ). So then all those people who have changed their travel plans to Toronto, or stopped shopping, or whatever, have done it because they're afraid of getting it, but would they have actually got it if they had gone ahead and gone to Toronto? Probably not. At the same time, it is true that more people do die of the flu each year, it is as easy to contract the flu, and even though people can get a flu shot, not that many do. But this doesn't stop people from going about their business - the flu is well-known, it's been around for ages and it isn't "exciting" for want of a better word (also many people think that they get a flu at least once a year when they mistake a bad cold for the flu, so it doesn't seem all that serious). It's analogous to the fear about flying and travel that was so devastating for the economy after September 11. But those planes that did go up, all made it safely, so the fear was, though understandable, out of proportion to the threat. I think panic about SARS is the real epidemic.

[Animal]

Originally posted by Aelia Jusa: quote: Originally posted by Animal: quote: Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: SARS is a scam. More people die of the flu. Don't believe the hype.

The estimated impact to Toronto alone is $1 Billion in lost revenues due to SARS. This isn't a scam. [/QUOTE]How much is the economic impact due to SARS itself, of fear about SARS, though? Not to trivialise the seriousness of SARS because of course any disease that can be fatal for which there is no cure is serious, but from what I have heard from numerous sources, it is reasonably difficult to contract it, and most people that have are people close to those infected, like family or health workers. Like the flu or a cold, if you just walk past someone in the street who has it you're unlikely to catch it. As well, only 5% of people with it actually die from it (if that's inaccurate, please correct me [img]smile.gif[/img] ). So then all those people who have changed their travel plans to Toronto, or stopped shopping, or whatever, have done it because they're afraid of getting it, but would they have actually got it if they had gone ahead and gone to Toronto? Probably not. At the same time, it is true that more people do die of the flu each year, it is as easy to contract the flu, and even though people can get a flu shot, not that many do. But this doesn't stop people from going about their business - the flu is well-known, it's been around for ages and it isn't "exciting" for want of a better word (also many people think that they get a flu at least once a year when they mistake a bad cold for the flu, so it doesn't seem all that serious). It's analogous to the fear about flying and travel that was so devastating for the economy after September 11. But those planes that did go up, all made it safely, so the fear was, though understandable, out of proportion to the threat. I think panic about SARS is the real epidemic. [/QUOTE]True, but the impact of SARS remains the same, whether direct or indirect. The loss of business to Toronto, although no directly related, is still SARS related and caused a huge impact on the economy of Ontario. The virus itself isn't particularly dangerous, at least any more than say Ebola, yet the victom's of SARS, may not even have it. A lot of people in Toronto have lost jobs and businesses because of it, so I tend to include the "indirect victoms" in the overall picture.

[Aelia Jusa]

Well yes, but as I understood Djinn's post, he was referring to SARS the disease, not SARS the concept. When he said 'SARS is a scam, don't believe the hype' I took it to mean that the 'hype' is the media focus on how scary it is, which causes the panic. If one of the lead stories on the news every night is 'another suspected case of SARS' or 'three more people have died of SARS in China overnight' then of course people are going to see it as much more prevalent and frightening than it really is, especially when you don't at the same time have a story on 'another 4000 people died of influenza worldwide' which provides a benchmark. Not that the 'hype' was how much impact it is having on the economy of places most affected, as if when we hear that Toronto's economy is suffering as a result it is an exaggeration. Our tourism industry in Queensland is also being hit quite hard, especially on the back of the war and September 11 and so on.