SARS comment

[Guest guest]

Stitch,

I am amazed at the comment about SARS getting out of control!

Please allow me to offer my humble comments. Do the math and then

tell me if it was really so serious as the media made it. As I

reall only about 863 deaths were confirmed to be due to SARS. That

among a population of over 1.3 BILLION in PR China alone, not to

mention Canada, HK, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, and a couple of

other countries which reported an isolated death or two even

including the USA.

Based on that, the percentage of deaths was only about .0000663%

Not really too statistically significant would you say? Compare

that with the statistic that some 36,000 persons in the USA with a

population of only about 260 MILLION, or .01385% die each year of

the FLU. In other words, each year 208.9 times as many people die

of the flu in the USA, and that does not even get a mention when it

comes to epidemics.

Having made more than 100 trips to China since 1979, I know first

hand that there was more chance of getting hit by a car crossing the

street than catching and dying of SARS when I was there in April

just after SARS was announced. Another point to make here is that

the majority of the deaths fell into two main categories: 1) Old

and sickly persons with weakened immune systems and 2) Those who

worked in environments where they were continually exposed to SARS

(such as one friend of mine who was a doctor who gave her life to

try to help people in HK. She worked far too many hours among the

infected patients and in her tired and weakened condition contracted

the Virus and died.) Those who were younger and relatively healthy

did not even contract SARS and the few who did ultimately recovered.

What is wrong with this picture? Often emotions and fear severely

DISTORT the seriousness of a situation. People certainly would do

better to calm down and look at things sensibly before they PANIC

over a situation.

R A B

> Please have an open mind and have faith that people will become

> educated.

>

> If doctors knew everything SARS would not have gotten so out of

> control.