SARS

So, um - aren't they saying that SARD is a virus?

Mutation of the common cold is the last I read. At this point I dunno, Im just trying to stay out of the way of sneezing people.

Depends on who you ask.

Something to do with cutting back on the inhaled siliva transfered from hacking and coughing by the sick folk would be my guess.

The UN eh? Freaky. I should go poke around to see who does other then us and our southern neighbours.

Viruses and bacteria are both individually too tiny to be stopped by any sort of typical fabric mask. The trick is this - to travel from host to host, a virus or bacteria has to ride on a droplet of moisture, like the kind that you expel in a sneeze or cough. While not a perfect defense, a simple stretch of fabric over your mouth will prevent most diseases from entering your respiratory tract. For example, if we were attacked using biological weapons, there have been tests with rodents that have proven that a double layer of T-shirt fabric held over the mouth and nose stands an extremely good chance of saving your life. As they say with the 4/4 backbeat, it's cliché for a reason.

(anecdotal remark overheard concerning these experiments: it's a bitch getting folded fabric to stay on a mouse's face)

Tracer's right too - the fatality rate is still a lot lower than some other things you can catch.

Steve McCroskey: Johnny, what can you make out of this?
[Hands him the weather briefing]
Johnny: This? Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl -

the proximity of humans, pigs, and chickens makes a ripe breeding ground for transmission and mutation of avian virus' to virus' that affect humans.

lame.

:-D

;-D

I just heard on the radio that the Australian government has advised it's people not to travel to HK, China , Vietnam or Laos. Take care Phil!

there doesn't seem to be a simple explanation for that one.
a large number of them are suffering from kafunsho due
to overenthusiastic monoculture tree farming. all the forests
have been logged and replanted with a single type of cedar which
grows particularly straight. this has caused a huge percentage
of japan residents massive, massive allergy problems.

but that's not the only explanation for the masks ...

it's like all the sleeping commuters. i've heard that someone
is doing a phd thesis on that topic ...

Thanks Chris [and Teeny]. I'm sure it'll be fine. the places i'm going to in China are nowhere near Hong Kong - like a 40 hour train ride away. And anyways, the Australian/American governements are always warning their citizens against travelling anywhere. If we all listened, our holiday options would be limited to Ibiza and Canada. Are you Cabbage Chris, by the way?

Now, that said, let's keep speculation to a minimum and discuss what's actually happening in our communities, and our concerns. Overtly racist stuff (and I'm still not convinced that there has been any, necessarily) will be deleted.

Just as a cautionary note tho: anyone who's familiar with the history of AIDS knows that there was a contingent of gay people who strongly opposed the city of SF shutting down the bathhouses. However, in that case it really was in the public interest to support this measure, not least to keep gay people alive. I mean plenty of right-wing anti-gay whatevas may have supported the measure for all the wrong reasons but if they had been shut down earlier many more ppl. would be alive today. So yeah.

Just wash yr hands after using the bathroom and before eating and cover your mouth when you sneeze. Jesus H. Christ.

BTW am I missing something? I don't pick up anything that could
be seriously classed as racist in the above.

I have a friend who's planning to go to China soon and this sorta put him off a bit but...

Also I think Ms. Laura's comments are a bit off, but honestly we can't pretend that China is up to the same standards as the more modernized world re: health risks, especially lately and in the hellish conditions of the Special Economic Zones in the coastal areas.

On the other hand, dense population is certainly more an issue elsewhere in Asia than in China where urban population is relatively light, tho I think that rural density is still higher than elsewhere. I mean urban overpop. is more a problem in Taiwan for example.

I certainly do not condemn anyone, but I stand by my calling out of certain poorly worded statements above.

1) There are plenty of ex-boyfriends of mine that I would be relieved if they moved to China. For good. Or any other far away country that is nowhere near me.

2) There are some of my ex-boyfriends that I would be *GLAD* if they contracted terrible diseases and died.

I was not implying in any way that these two statements were necessarily connected, other than that there is an outbreak of a terrible disease currently focused in China. The link was that I have an ex-boyfriend (who should be joining us shortly to discuss this - his name is Simon and please be nice to him, as he is a lovely fellow) who I do NOT wish to die horribly or require to relocate to far quarters of the world - who happens to be going to China.

ANYWAY!!! I hope that clears matters up. I am not a racist. I am an equal opportunity misanthrope and I hate all cultures and races equally. Thanks.

The stuff about disease vectors and the like I don't find racist at all, but it seems that is what people are taking offense to. When you have a country where almost medieval scales of poverty and overcrowding live cheek by jowl with very modern technology and global travel - you have a problem. It doesn't matter if that place is modern China or India or Victorian London. To state that this is an epedemiologist's nightmare is not racist, it's an educated guess.

To expand that idea to a hysterical "worry" about *all* Chinese people - whether they are third generation Canadians who have lived in Toronto all their lives, or Chinese tourists who might possibly be from a city 2000 miles away from the epidemic - *THAT* is when you venture into the territories of racism.

I mean, look what happened during the Foot And Mouth hysteria - tourism in the UK ground to a halt, and British passengers were detained at American airports and hosed down with antiseptic. Is that racism?

Smee, Nick just stayed with me for two days and he was *fairly* freaked out about Sars, but felt more susceptible than most people because:

He's on a plane about five times this month; this thing seems to use planes as flying petri dish. Well, planes are flying petri dishes anyway and nobody's gone - YO, AIRLINES, FRESH CABIN AIR! CAPICHE?

Britain's Chinatown is predominantly HK/Cantonese, with people and goods coming in and going out every day. This community is shitting itself about SARS, understandably.

He's going to Japan this summer and thinks the epidemic might spread to there and pick off a few of his friends, even though Japanese people are more conscious about hygiene because of the pop density etc. than western folk (example: it's very rude to blow your nose in public there).

He's paranoid. And has been told off.

Not covering ones mouth or nose when sneezing or coughing is the biggie of course, in this context.

Rather I'd say that there is a different sense of what is unhygenic
and what the taboos are.

My prediction is that unfortunately SARS will turn out to be
pretty serious here, once the authorities get around to admitting
it. And I think Japan is ill-equipped to deal with it, from
several standpoints.

I think you should give me and my country a little bit more credit. Yes the papers are blowing this out of proportion, its knocked the US war off the front prage completely in some papers. I don't think the papers are being antichinese or anti-imigration though, we leave that to the Reform Party.

The local paper says it best there I think.

Masked palm civets have short fur that can be brown, orange, red or gray, with black bands on the head and feet. They eat mostly fruit, weigh up to 13 pounds and have bodies that grow up to two-and-a-half feet long, with tails of nearly equal length.

Judging from their activity and feeding habits, infected civets do not appear to feel any ill-effects from the virus. Only a small number of civets have been tested so far. Professor Yuen declined to say precisely how many, but most seemed to have the virus.

It is possible that the disease originated in another species and then spread to the civets, he said at a news conference this afternoon, while adding that he believed that the disease came to people from civets. While no tests have been done, it is also "theoretically possible" that household cats could become infected, as they are very similar biologically to civets, Professor Yuen added.

The raising and slaughter of civets and other exotic animals should be strictly regulated to prevent further outbreaks of SARS and possibly other new diseases, he said, while contending that a total ban on consumption of them could not succeed. "It is very difficult to stop a culture; it has been there for 5,000 years," he said.

There is nothing strange about the Sars coronavirus, they said; it certainly evolved from other known viruses.

One leading expert said Professor Wickramasinghe's letter "must be a joke"; another said it is simply ridiculous.'

surely it is the Professor's name that is the joke here?!@@

THEY GOT THE DISEASE BECAUSE THEY WERE EATING KITTENS DO YOU SEE?

GOD IS A TWEE BASTARD

AIDS - mysterious lethal disease whose appearance is attributed to a virus spontaneously "jumping" from one species to another

I need to not be so paranoid.

I for one am massively impressed by the way knowledge and research data about this disease has travelled through the international medical community. I think the way this has been handled by the WHO etc. is nothing short of amazing, really. Look at where we years ago with regard to similar new illnesses. Like Wow.