Henry, I was meaning just in the Toronto outbreak. It's not surprising that in China it was Chinese who got sick and died, and in similar proportions as in Euros who caught it. What seems different in Toronto was a lack of young healthy Euros dying. But the list didn't give descriptions of all individuals who died, so it's not exactly robust data. It's impressionistic at this stage.
It was not a statistically random selection of humans in Toronto who got sick and died. It was highly skewed in various ways. Being old and sick and in the care of doctors was the worst combination to have.
Being Asian wasn't good either and not just because the original person who brought sars to Toronto was Asian and therefore likely to pass it on to other Asians on returning to Toronto. It was in hospitals where the infections went rampant, not at Yum Char.
The HLA stuff might be an important subset. Medical people in the next outbreak should be the right HLA type who have been previously infected. They'd be immune and could take the bug on without masks. Those who were infected, and are capable, in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and China should be offered a lot of money to train as medical people to help in the next round of sars.
If I was a nurse, I'd be refusing to attend sars wards - the risk is too high and pay too low. But if I'd had sars already, or had good HLA, I'd offer my services.
Mqurice |
