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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21557