Blogtrek

SARS epidemic

Among other things these past few years, we have been confronted with a disease called sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The action that some people have taken in the world reminds me of the Sliders episode in which the slidonauts wind up in a world overtaken by a disease, and everyone on the streets wears face masks and signs in the restaurant guarantee sterileness and cleanliness. This was a forbidding landscape, and it is lucky that the slidonauts got out OK.

Epidemics have occurred before (such as the AIDS epidemic), but people haven't reacted like this. It is as though people are willing to sacrifice their freedom to protect from a disease. Is this warranted? What are the facts?

So far, SARS has 4,836 cases with 293 deaths, so it kills about 4% of the people it strikes. The symptoms resemble influenza, and in many respects this disease is like influenza. The two start out the same: fever, aches in the joints, and so forth. Recovery usually comes with both diseases, but both are contagious. I graphed the number of cases on Excel and fit an exponential curve to it. I found that on 2004 March 15 if the current growth rate of about 1.1% per day continues, there will be 1,200,000,000 cases, or about the same as the population of China and a significant percentage of the world. I think something is going to intervene by then, because of all the measures taken to control it. Even though it is like influenza, it is caused by a coronavirus, just like the common cold is.

So is this overblown? I say yes. AIDS and Ebola are far more serious threats - they kill everybody (almost) that they infect. This one kills only a small percentage. In future years, they will look back on this epidemic and how we reacted to it, but I feel it will not be as bad as the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed millions, including my great aunt.