X-Message-Number: 21557
Date: Sun,  6 Apr 2003 15:57:01 -0700
Subject: Home-grown SARS in the US; China vs. Hong Kong
References:  <>
From:  (Tim Freeman)

Message #21547
From: Charles Platt <>
>According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, only about 10
>percent of cases in the USA are "home grown."

Have a reference for that?

At http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_04_05/en/, the "Local
chain(s) of transmission" column for the US is "None".  It was "To be
determined" for a long time after all the other countries seemed to
figure out whether they have local chains of transmission, so I don't
know what's going on there.

>Thus the primary challenge seems to be containing the Hong Kong
>problem in Hong Kong.

The reported size of the Chinese problem is bigger and I trust their
reports less, so IMO the primary challenge is containing the disease
in mainland China.  

Among other things, this will require getting their government to stop
lying about it.  They first announced that they had ~300 cases and
they said it was under control.  Their next report was ~800.  After
that they said it was under control, and their next report was ~1200.
The WHO has announced twice that China is participating in the daily
electronic reports, but the Chinese numbers don't change every day.

WHO investigators were not permitted to visit Guangdong as soon as
they would have liked.

From conversations I have had with Chinese people, it seems that the
germ theory of disease isn't universally accepted there.  If this
extends to government officials, they'll probably continue to make
mistakes in managing it.

>I conclude that for the time being at least, graphs of SARS cases are of
>no help whatsoever in predicting the future of the disease outside of
>Asia.

I agree.  SARS outside Asia seems to be primarily transmitted by plane
flights leaving Asia.

Vietnam seems to be dealing with it well, though.  They report new
cases very rarely.  I hope this is a statement about the disease in
Vietname, not their reporting.

-- 
Tim Freeman                                                  
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
GPG public key fingerprint ECDF 46F8 3B80 BB9E 575D  7180 76DF FE00 34B1 5C78 

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