Yes

Sweet Dreams!
:)

It apparently is a super stong version of the common cold. I am pretty sure it was developed by Rummy and his crowd and unleashed on China because they have not taken care of the North Korea problem yet! It may have been the illuminati though, you never know with those guys.

It does not appear to be very contagious by the look of things. Virulent, yes, but not highly contagious.

I have a theory that like AIDS, it's a rather feeble virus unable to survive for long outside the human body. I think they should try keeping the quarantine wards at about 15 degrees celcius and see if that brings the rate of infection down.

I'll bet my ass it does!

Yes! We're all gonna die...sooner or later.

Operation SARS is classified.

Thankfully the government is taking care of it

Here's a SARS blog:

http://www.sarswatch.org/

okay people, time to clear up some facts (which are as clear as london fog or l.a smog...)
SARS is not a super lethal virus... the current sick/death rate stand just under 4% (including the dead in china- if we look at only the westdern world it's around 0.something%) the problem is, it's SUPER infective (at least in china) it is airborn and rather resistent (15' is nice idea, but in a month it's summer time buddy, and not a lot of places have that temprature naturally). So now lets all do the 1+1...
super infective+not very lethal=still a shit load of dead (do 3% of 10,000,000...... painfull)
that's why CDC's around the world bent ballistic a month ago... things look a lot less threatening now. It's still not funny, but the way it looks this thing isn't gonna be a global killer (but hey, I could be wrong...)

Does this mean operation SARS is a failure at all levels?

So what you are saying is SARS only kills foreigners and the weak? Sounds like an IMAO inspired disease. Now if we can just get the Democrats to move to China, hmmmmm.......

I'm late to the party, but I heard yesterday that it had been identified and the CDC was quickly working on a vaccine.

Well, I don't know much about it, but a man living about half an hour away from me died for it (SARS). And there's been a crapload of cold's and sickness's going around my school lately..and everyone is all panicked and whatnot. That's about all I can tell you.

-Jeff
(resident of California)

Flesh,

From all I've learned about Rummy and his crowd, especially that Condi Rice, I'm going to have to disagree with you. Urikhan says it's not a super-lethal virus; and you know that if Condi had had any role in the development the press would be short several journalists, and Rummy would have fewer asinine questions to bother with.

Maybe it is only lethal to journalists and foreigners...

A plague based on the common cold doesn't have quite the style that we would expect from something intentional. Now Monkey Pox, that's got style. Relative of small pox and no vaccine; slowly becoming more virulent among humans; and of course, it has the word "Monkey" in the name. Definitely better than crappy old SARS.

I heard that the Chinese government was trying to hide the fact about SARS from their people. People found out about it from the internet. It's basically their fault that it's spreading so bad, once again showing the evils of communism and Marxism.

I make no warranty for the following being true, since I got it from the Internet:

The reason that infectious diseases become epidemics in China is that people do not trust physicians and don't visit them until it's practically too late.

And the reason for that is historical. In the heyday of the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao, it was decided that sexually transmitted diseases would be eradicated.

So they made everyone with an STD show up and register with the authorities. Then they killed them. And the STDs were gone.

There is this general rule that the more rapidly spreading the infectious agent is, the quicker it loses it's virulence. Remeber, viruses don't really want to kill the host, just to multiply. If this is freshly mutated coronavirus (from one family of viruses that cause common cold), then I expect to lose its virulence rather quickly and join the status of a nuisance, rather than a killer.
However, if you get 104 fever and have difficulties breathing, check yourself into the local hospital ASAP.

SARS is very, very infectious.

They estimate just 3 people - they call them Hyperinfectors - infected up to 30 people each.

Yes, the death rate is low. 3 - 4 %

However, imagine everyone in the US getting it once over the next 10 years.

4% of 300 million = 12 million people.

Imagine everyone in the world getting it once in the next 10 years.

4% of 6.2 billion = 248,000,000 dead.

Maybe that 4% will be all the hippies and protesters

bruce, thanks for repeating exactly what I said...
but with numbers add for panic effect :)
two new points-
1)This one should make you breath easier, SARS is not exponential. What does that mean?
In the begining (pretty much till last week :) people feared one person could infect a dozen.
(do the math... 1-12-144-20736-*ouch*) that is not happening (infection rates are climing, but not as steeply as that). There seems to be certain people who are more infectious and some less. Now hope your neighbor belongs to group "less".
2)The WHO (world health organization) are pissed at china for covering up SARS in its early stages (I've read some articles claiming chinese goverment officals knew about it as early as November 2002), what's my point you ask?
Anyone remember this line?
"When one country catches a cold, another sneezes!" (I don't remeber the exact quote)
if it weren't so scary, it'd be funny!

p.s-anyone got the exact quote?

News just in, apparently the scientists have cracked the genetic code.

Damn but they work fast these days :D

A new thing to worry about. SARS is now killing younger people.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2003/4/14/latest/11390HongKong&sec=latest

"HONG KONG (AP) - Health officials said Monday they were trying to figure out why six relatively young SARS patients with no aggravating illnesses have died in recent days.

Hong Kong has had 40 deaths from severe acute respiratory syndrome but many of the fatalities have been elderly people or patients suffering from other chronic health problems, such as heart disease or kidney disease.

But six of eight deaths reported over the weekend were people ranging in age from 35 to 52 and Hospital Authority spokeswoman Elinda Luk said Monday that officials were investigating what had happened."

The news and other commenters have pointed to SARS being lethal mainly to the infirm, though now it seems to be striking some healthier individuals as well.
My question, is what happens if this sort of disease hits an African country with 20-50% HIV/AIDS rates?! I don't know if having an impaired immune system will make this bug that much more lethal (higher morbidity rate), but I would just imagine (shudder) that African populations and health care systems will be even worse at handling this thing if it gets introduced or reaches epidemic or pandemic stages than China and the Asian rim countries.

I have been wondering for a while if or when some nasty but not normally terribly fatal bug would start making the rounds of Africa and seriously start depopulating the continent. I fear that something like this SARS fits the job just great with it's high infection rate and inherent chances for morbidity.

In terms of morbidity and mortality, SARS is Influenza Lite. Seriously folks, good ol' flu slaughters a hell of a lot more people worldwide, and WAY more in the Western world. It's not nothing, but if you don't fret every flu season, there's not much to worry about here.

TO:Frank j. SARS is a flu virus,which came from a chicken or a pig the only to place that a virus like sars could come from once transmited to people this is when it could go air born,as in the 1918 outbreak that killed 40 million people 600,000 are more in the usa an airborn virus can move around the world with the speed of a jet,china had an avain outbreak 5 to7 years ago,they ordered every chicken in china distoryed,