Henry, thanks for the link to the Toronto victims. Perhaps of more interest are those who survived infection, which wasn't shown. Survivors, and those affected little, are less morbidly interesting than those who succumbed. But the survivors show what it takes to survive and suggest the weaknesses which did in those who died.
But just focusing on those who died from sars [and confounding variables in most instances].
I don't see a homogenous picture. Nor a democratic one, [other than in the sense that majority rule will win the day and those voted by the sars bug as having suitable genes and immune systems to act as carriers will win the day].
Here is what I want to avoid in Round 3 of sars versus us, judging by the list of those who died:
Being old
Being sick [especially with respiratory problems]
Being Chinese [maybe that could narrow down to that HLA stuff]
also:
Being a smoker [though I haven't seen any data on that aspect, I bet it's not good to be a smoker when sars hits]
Being in a hospital
Letting the mindless "authorities", medical or other, know about me or getting hold of me [they'd put me in a place full of sars victims]
Going to Yum Char [yesterday was good, but I can see that where we were sitting would be vacant in a sars rampage]
Being in a bus [without breathing apparatus]
Being in an aircraft [without breathing apparatus]
Being in cities or towns where lots of people have sars
Missing from the list of dead are a fair share of European young people [under age 50]. Dead Europeans were nearly all quite old and frail. But dead Asians were healthy and younger [though not under 40].
Toronto, in 1975, when we spent time there, was an eclectic and polyglot place. An excellent place to test market sars to see how it will go around the world. Much better than Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei.
I'd like to see the survivor data and see how they differed from the dead.
Rampant sars would cut social welfare payments to pensioners and cut medical costs because it would kill hordes of elderly sick people. It would empty out lots of property occupied by single old people. Financially stuck government officials might even breathe a sigh of relief if sars killed 100s of millions of those over age 60. Property prices might drop.
Look at the costs which we baby boomers are going to cause as we age and come to grief. Sars is a very cheap alternative. Message 19347879
I can feel a conspiracy theory against we baby-boomers and Chinese coming on. This is obviously a germ warfare plot by government biowarfare authorities in the USA to stop China's burgeoning power and save Medicare and pension plans.
Mqurice |
