Am I the only one tired of hearing about SARs?
 

Okay I WANTED to title this thread "I am the only one tired of hearing about the killer bees.... wait not I mean the west nile virus... wait no I mean SARs" but that was to long. Seriously though people. I went to borders today and there were atleast 5 magizines that I saw that had SARs as the cover story. Now I have known all along that this SARs thing is just another one of our fears that is completly unfounded. Now to prove that to myself I decided to do a LITTLE research on SARs. Basically just trying to find some satistics. Much as I expected I found very little real information. But going to several websites I was able to come to a few conclusions. First the whole SARs thing seemed to start near the end of febuary. For arguments sake we will say March 1. And it has killed "over 200 people" again for arguments sake I am going to round that up to an even 250. That is worldwide for 2 months time. So to calculate someones chances of dieing from SARs I decide to do a little deduction. First take the commonly believe world population of 6 billion people. Now there is a very good chance that that number is inflated. But that is an argument for another time. Again, for the sake of argument we are going to round down the world population to 3 billion. So what are your chances of dieing from SARs? Using the numbers I have provided (all of them intentionally made disproportionate in the favor of SARs being a super virus) that makes the chances of you dieing from SARs in any given month (this is also saying that SARs dosn't spread but again from what I have read SARs isn't THAT contagius) as 1 in 24,000,000 OR if you are just concerned about getting it but living with it, The amount of infected people is around 4000. Round that up to 5000 to give err in favor of panic and plug that in and your chances of getting infected are... 1 in 1,200,000 in a given month.

Welcome to sweeps on tv. I hate to be that cynical, but scaring the crap out of people is what sells on the news. Once it makes tv news, it hits the papers and the net. Everyone starts to think of it as a catastrophic plague. The great pandemic that take out a large portion of the population based on the amount of news coverage that it's getting. The truth is, you're probably as likely (if not more likely) to die from influenza than from sars.

the coverage and attention given to the SARS "epidemic" is a classic case of media feeding paranoia. there is some legitimate concern in places where the disease is fairly widespread (Hong Kong), but a lot of fear about it comes from the fact that we know so little about it.

um, theres also concern that SARS leaves permanent lung damage, and is also capable of staying dormant.

also, its believed that the virus is capable of rapid mutation, making a vaccine very hard to do, and making the potential virulence of the virus very hard to estimate.

for instance in HK the original mortality rate was 2%, but that went up to 5% 2 weeks ago, and now 10% recently. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...sars_mutate_dc )

i don't know where you got your statistics from, but according to reuters almost 6000 likely cases have been reported and has caused almost 400 deaths to date, mostly in china and hong kong. that was according to reuters on may 2nd. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...nm/who_sars_dc )

If we go a bit more recently... 2 hours ago according to the website, SARS has infiltrated 27 countries with around 6200 infections and 435 deaths, according to the WHO (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...sars_cases_low)


so yes, i think theres some cause of worry. I do agree wholeheartedly with you that the media exaggerate to all hell, but no, i don't think this is an issue thats been way overrated.

the final thing that i'd like to say is that your statistics are not really an accurate representation of the probabilty of getting SARS. For your stats to work, every person would have to have an equal chance of being infected, which is clearly not the case. (someone in America has a much much lower chance of being infected then someone in HK, for instance.)

I pretty much just stay away from all SARS stories with the explicit exception of my New Scientist subscription.

Try living in Toronto.

Then you will know what it feels like to be a leper

Right and that is sorta the point. Even with the unlikly hood of getting it even in hong kong, we are going crazy here in america. Why? Has there even been 1 reported case? I just went to the WHO wesbite. First headline is how the WHO has lifted the toronto travel advisory. Second headline? "More than 3000 children die each day due to malaria" Now what the fuck? Over 3000 A DAY? And here I am hearing about 435 in 2 months? 190 deaths since sars started in china. China has over 1 billion people in it. So in china, the center of the sars debate, your chances of dieing in the last two months was 1 in 5,263,157. About 4000 cases in china. Chances of getting infected.. 1 in 250,000. Yea you are right. I am going to be losing alot of sleep over SARs now.

We are informed already... that my stance on it. Let me know if there are any new development, real developments.

If anything, the seemingly low infection rate of SARS and the low mortality rate of SARS patients is testimonial to the effectiveness of the measures that China, Canada and the Southeast Asian countries are taking. SARS is in fact an extremely virulent disease- while the manner by which it spreads requires fairly close physical proximity, a casual sneeze or two is all it needs to ensnare another victim.

In Singapore, an air hostess unknowingly infected her family and her Church pastor with SARS. Within a few short weeks, she had indirectly caused the deaths of her pastor and both her parents. She survived the illness, but her conflict with SARS has resulted in a phyrric victory at best. The harrowing and traumatic experience that she went through should have never be inflicted upon anyone.

Let our resounding triumph over SARS not trivialize its deadly nature; instead, let it be an acknowledgment to the swift action of governments, and the excellence of the medical community at large.

I don't need to hear about SARS.
First, I'm an anti-hypochondriac (I have no interest in medical anything).

Second, until the probability statistics of things like this rise to some significant fraction of what could possibly affect any individual, they are non-stories. They are simply used to sell sensational news.

SARS = a strange version of the Chinese flu. The name was made up to be politically correct.

I think you just hit the nail on the head right there

I think the media has sensationalized SARS in an attempt to attract viewers. Scared people watch the news to try and find out what's happening.

However, the real facts about SARS are pretty disturbing. It does have a very high communicablility rate. We really do not have any way to cure it yet.

Stories like the one about the stewardess are scare tactics. That doesn't mean we should over-trivialize the issue. I'm not scared of catching SARS and dying, but it does have the potential to became a major issue if people ignore the warnings and travel advisories.

i dont think they're concentrating on how many people actually walk out.

On TFP v 3.0 I stated in a thread on SARS that I was not remotely worried about SARS even after returning from China as the story was breaking. Initially we were told (by the CDC) that we did not need to worry about it because of our itinerary. Later we learned that it had spread to Beijing and by then 3 of the 40 in our group had been hospitalized with pneumonia. I was given to understand that all had been told it was not SARS until recently. Now I am told that some were told they were "suspected cases." I was working through all this and I would have stayed away from the hospital if I knew then what I know now.

440 reported deaths from SARS to-date on Australian News this morning.I work for an international it co with over 500 Asian staff-Most are grounded for the moment from travel overseas,especialy the asian regions.It is being taken very seriously in Aus.

SARS=Severe Asian Racism Syndrome

Get it over it everyone! We're people just like you!

In order to get a true picture of the death rate for SARS you must divide the number of deaths into the number of known outcomes (there are only two: death or recovery). Those that are infected but have neither died, nor recovered cannot be counted in the death rate. In this light the death rate is closer to 20%. The fear is that it is mutating, and the nature of that mutation is not known at this time.

I would rather this get some attention from public health officials (not sensationalized in the media) so that we don't end up with another AIDS situation a few years from now, with perhaps millions of what could have been peventable infections. Am I going to lose sleep over it? No. I would just rather see us get a handle on it sooner rather than later.

I couldn't agree more with those above who credited media sensationalism for the fever around SARS. But... people buy into the hype very easily, which is why the media outlets hyped it so much to begin with...

dood, try living in Hong Kong... i have friends going to school with mask on even in class; living in constant fear because her relatives died from it.... the media is over doing it but it's still scary as hell....

See that is my whole point. They are living in fear and we don't even know enough about it yet. I mean how do we even know that these little paper masks help? We don't. As I allready pointed out even in china, the origin and center of the sars scare, the cases rates and the mortality rate has been rather low.

I'm with you Kirk... I keep getting calls from overseas and US clients to make sure I'm OK...

Sars Shmars

Well, I'm tired about hearing SAR's. It's okay if they have an article or two on television but when they talk about it a whole hour it gets pretty sickening.

http://tshirthell.com/shirts/products/a218/a218.gif



too much media attention means people see it as a boy who cried wolf or freak out, neither is good

Here are some stats that I found very intriguing.

Comparing Dangers in Canada

:: SARS
23 deaths to date

:: SPANISH FLU 1918-1919
230,000-50,000 deaths

:: NORMAL FLU
500-1,500 yearly

:: CANCER
Kills about 65,300 per year

:: FIREARMS
Kills about 1,200 per year

:: CAR ACCIDENTS
Killed about 3,000 in the year 2000

Ive come to avoid tv or print that mentions Sars, WMD, or Muslims. But i do wonder when E.R will do an episode dealing with SARS.

it's so fucking funny how overhyped it is... "IT SWEPT HONG KONG! A WHOPPING 25 ARE DEAD!"

and yeah, i'm sick of hearing about it.

Just to put this in perspective, according to the NYTimes Science section, the influenza pandemic of 1918 had a mortality rate of 1% or less. It killed tens of millions of people worldwide.

The most recent study in China says that the death rate could be as high as 55% in people over 60 and 13.2% in younger people. It also seems to be highly communicable. Here's the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/sc...agewanted=1&th

It is overhyped, but people are seeming to think that it is only hype. I think it is a major issue, and it's getting so much hype because nobody really knows much about it. Dismissing everything that we are told about it seems foolish to me.

So you guys are sick of hearing about it?

I LIVE IN TAIWAN!

I've just recently come to realize why Elvis shot his TV into pieces. Slow motion shots of grieving relatives set to sad piano music, warnings and comparisons between face masks. Every hour of the day. I had a fever of 39 degrees celsius the other day, and everybody went nuts. Somebody coughs, people go paranoid.

It's all a load of crap. Okay, I wouldn't want it, but unless I'm going to lick seats in busses or kiss everybody I meet, I doubt I'll get it. All I do is wash my hands more often, and use more utensils when eating.

http://www.remud.org/~tzar/img/051303-sars.jpg

Yeah I think people are over-reacting a bit. I mean, it's great that we are aware of the disease and all so we can perhaps be a little more careful about washing our hands & all... but I haven't seen anything useful being given to us by the media. The news isn't saying to wash frequently or avoid eating in crowded areas. What they're saying is Shit! Get a mask on! Don't go to Asia! Don't go near Canada! You're going to fucking die!!.

Sensationalism. Feh.

I like the idea from Douglas Adams in Starship Titanic... where all journalists are forced to be called "The Journalist" instead of by name... something about the cult of personality or somesuch ;)