SARS truth from a guy Living in Toronto

[jp1]

Remember the 'face' issue is prevalent throughout all of Asia ... not just China to the best of my knowledge.

 

Very much so, common all over East Asia. Even my Japanese colleagues doubt the news about no SARS cases in this country. There are about 60 flights per day btw. Japan and China. Thousands of Japanese travel on business or vacation to this country every week and only 2 SARS suspected cases so far? Many believe they exist but are hidden from the general public much better than in China or other countries.

 

[check_bin_krap]

"Are you guys implying that when Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan openly reported their cases of the SARS virus, they were not concerned about saving face, or perhaps even more unusual, that they deliberately did so to lose face?

Remember the 'face' issue is prevalent throughout all of Asia ... not just China to the best of my knowledge"

..........................................................................

Its more difficult to hide this in Hong Kong, although it initially was brushed aside as not a big deal. The bad press even provoked officials there into anger initially.

 

When it comes to Vietnam the outbreak was at an international hospital, also making it impossible to keep quiet. Furthermore, when the outbreak spread quickly to other countries it can't be kept quiet. Exactely that was what made China open up also, through the spread internationally.

 

But it was kept hidden from WHO and others from Nov. 2002 until feb 2003..

 

So the conclusion is that when other countries are involved it can't be kept quiet...

 

[StoneSoup]

Concerning the situation in Canada, see a good CSC background report at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/sars_timeline.html

 

Read it carefully. Of all deaths itemized by age (which is about 80% of them), only three deaths were in people below the age of 70 - one at age 44, one at age 57, and one at age 64. All the rest were in their 70's and 80's - except for the one unlucky bloke who died of SARS on April 19th at the ripe age of 99 years.

 

So - there is virtually no SARS death rate for Canadians under 44 years of age. But - sorry for all you guys approaching 100 years of age - you odds of lasting another year get really long once there are over 100 candles on your cake.

 

The real headlines should read: "SARS is a disease now contributing to the deaths of elderly people - much as pneumonia and influenze have done for years in MUCH greater numbers- hey, we all gotta go sometime - and ultimately, most people who die of "old age" actually die of respiratory failure (you stop breathing)."

 

So - now that you're seriously looking into the significance of SARS in Canada, you decide to really do the numbers - correctly. So - you go to the CIA world factbook for Canada at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ca.html

and you learn that Canada's population is approximately 31,902,000 people, 12.9% of whom are over the age of 65. You then notice that the annual death rate in Canada is 7.54 per 1,000. Crunch the numbers a bit, and you figure out that every year, 240,500+ Canadians die - of something. That's a tad over 659 per day. SARS is still a long way away from claiming even one death per day, on average.

 

Then you go to the dictionary, and look up the term

"background noise", and go to the advertising archives and look up the old hamburger commercial for the "Where's the beef?" advertising campaign.

 

Then you realize just what it takes to maintain reader and viewer stats after a nice photogenic war - and you decide you'd rather go drink a beer.

 

And Canada - along with Vietnam and Singapore - was a key "hotbed" of the SARS "crisis." Mowing down 99 year old men like a hot knife through butter.

 

Hey - I like Canada - 'glad to hear it was all an exercise in "better err on the side of caution".

 

So - how does SARS compare to something like "plain vanilla influennza or pneumonia"? Glad you asked. Take a look at:

http://www.proratenih.com/flu_deaths.htm I'll leave it to you to compare the figures here with the SARS death rates in the worst hit areas.

 

It is truly a strange world that the media feeds to us. I'm glad that I didn't make any of these links up.

 

Cheers!

SS

[Khun_Kong]

Says keith doug:

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HELP HELP!!!ADVICE PLEASE....I am booked to go bangkok ... [color:"red"] I want to go and sit on beach

[/color]

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Advice: better get outta BKK quickly, then!

[New Petchburi Pete]

Bangkok does have a beach, and maybe more than one. But,

if one is looking for a postcard setting, yeah, head South!