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Pastimes : SARS - what next? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (327)	4/29/2003 10:40:03 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1070

Hi Yiwu, I counted up all the non-Chinese [Singapore being Chinese, as is Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand]. Of all the non-Chinese, hardly any die; something like 2%, though I don't have the exact figures. I mean Chinese as in a rough ethnic and cultural bundle - I suppose I could use 'East Asian' more accurately. But the vast majority of cases are in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, all Chinese places. I know Japanese males smoke like crazy and I believe [maybe wrong and Google could tell me] that males in China do too. Smoking wrecks lungs, so older smokers must be in big trouble with Sars. Therefore, I expect most of the Sars deaths in China are older, smoking, males [though I haven't seen a split of the data by gender, smoking, age]. Traditional remedies are a load of rubbish without scientific foundation [other than some of course]. We know viruses don't respond to herbal remedies, even if given some incantations to help the herbs along. If we could suck a leaf and cure AIDS, colds, flu, Sars and cancer, we'd be doing pretty well. That's not how things work. Diagnosis and reporting are perhaps the major problems with getting the numbers to be meaningful. China has double the number of cases and recoveries as Hong Kong. I dare say that's because, like me, a lot of people think they have Sars and so do their doctors, though they don't. With Hu Jintao reading the riot act about reporting, you can bet they report questionable cases to be on the safe side. I didn't know the difference between old and young was so much; 30% mortality for > 75 in Hong Kong and only 4% , 55. I suppose it's 20% for those aged about 70. The mortality is far greater than 4% because, as I've been explaining for a month now, people get sick before they die. It's at least 7% and looks likely to be 10%, at least in Chinese populations. Whether it's eventually 7% or 10% or worst case 15%, it's so bad that it's a catastrophe in the making if not stopped. Okay, those aged over 75 are at the end of their lives, so it's not as bad as 7% of the 25 year old population being lost, but it's still horrific! Neither do I trust the low risk to Causasians. Of 100 cases, no deaths [excluding Canada where I don't know how many are Caucasians]. The near-zero rate might be a diagnosis and reporting anomaly too. I doubt that Sars bugs detect much difference between different people, being a new bug, with no community immunity. who.int 353 deaths, 5462 cases = 6.5%, so we can forget about the old 3% or 4% idea. I dare say non-smoking young women are not at much risk. Men over age 70 who smoke I guess are the ones in most danger. Well, not as badly off as asthmatics, those with emphysema and those prone to bronchial infections, but not good. Have you seen any data on gender, smoking, asthmatics etc? Mqurice Edit, here they are male/female in Toronto... ogov.newswire.ca

To: RealMuLan who wrote (327)	4/29/2003 11:23:14 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1070

Yiwu - re: death rate. Maurice Winn has been very accurate in his projection - if you divide the cumulative number of infected patients by the cumulative number dead, you get a very false percentage of deaths because the number infected continues to climb. You need to look at the death rate of one cohort of people who were infected. If you do, the death rate is well above 10% - probably approaching 20%. Also, sorry, but China still isn't accurately reporting SARS victims. No offense, because Canada and the US are also struggling with this.