We received an email this AM from the president of our company. Apparently, it appears that someone in our company is in intensive care with SARS. He is quarantined and nobody is allowed to visit him. I would rather not divulge who or where he is.
He’s 50+, overweight, smokes like a chimney and has cardio problems. From the wording of the email, the outlook isn’t all that bright from what I understand. While I have met him, I don’t know him all that well. Regardless, it kind of makes the disease hit a little closer to home than I would like.
A friend of mine who lives in Germany has been seen repeatedly for pneumonia-like symptoms, as have her coworkers. They work in a Media-Markt (electronics-shop in a shopping mall), and she writes that their manager has already changed the air-conditioning system out 5 times.
I’m wondering if she and her coworkers may have SARS, and it isn’t being recognized?
In our hospital here in the States we have posters advising our patients to let us know if they have flu-like symptoms and have recently been out of country or have had contact with someone who has.
Looks like the President has signed a quarantine order for SARS already…
Sorry, no clue. The email said nothing of the sort. He lives in Alberta, Canada (which is not a hotspot for SARS) but I have no idea if he was just on Vacation somewhere or anything like that.
Well, there was no email with any updates today. I’ll take that as a good sign.
Some interesting facts culled from my local, less than stellar, newspaper yesterday:
The article was written by Seth Borenstein for Knight Ridder.
Here’s what I found most interesting:
It [SARS] is certainly not a killer like the common flu, which claims 35,000 to 50,000 Americans a year [says Stanford University medicine professor Stanley Deresinski, editor of Infectious Disease Alert.
–and–
SARS, for now, is far less prevalent in the United States than many other contagious diseases that health experts track. As of Saturday, there had been 115 cases of SARS in the United States since March 19, no deaths and only one person sick enough to need a ventilator.
By comparison, last week there were 344 new cases of hepatitis (which killed 5,094 Americans in 2001), 162 cases of syphillis and 5,780 cases of gonorrhea.
I just got back from Beijing and the ignorance here in the States is alarming. I cannot count how many times I’ve been asked in the past three days whether I have SARS. People whose offices are near mine have been working from home for the past three days.
You better believe I photocopied the entire article and highlighted the parts I’ve quoted here.
I hope your local health authority has the isolation orders wrapped up tight! A tenth Canadian died this morning-- again in Ontario.
In BC, the health guys and gals seem to have things under control. The guy with the ongoing case of SARS is slowly making a recovery… But I’m still glad I get to cover the story from a distance
While I’m sure much of the concern/fear is from ignorance, I am still concerned. Here is why:
1 - While flu kills more people that SARS, as an early-30’s healthy man, I believe that the flu won’t kill me (but I could be wrong). SARS, as far as I can tell, can kill me (again, I could be wrong). Also, I can get a flu shot but there is no SARS shot yet.
2 - I won’t catch syphillis or gonorrhea when taking the subway to work or taking a plane (unless the commute or trip is extra special). SARS, from what I have read, can be caught just by breathing next to somebody.
I heard an interview on CBC last week with the head of Microbiology at a major Toronto hospital. He said if someone is not elderly and does not have heart or lung problems, he would expect them to recover 100%. Usually, with nothing more than plenty of fluids and rest. I took that as the first bit of good news I’ve heard about it.
The bad news is that that the weak amongst us are the ones that will more likely that are far more likely of dying.
Not trying to sound harsh, but rather than get super fearful, you might read what the CDC has to say. You don’t say where you live, so unless you are living/traveling in one of the affected areas, I really have a hard time understanding your concern on this one. You are more likely to catch the common flu and die from that than from SARS.
