MMR is Measles/Mumps/Rubella. These diseases have nothing to do with the SARS virus. The MMR shot won’t protect you from SARS, neither will it make you more susceptible.
92 new cases found in one housing development in Hong Kong!
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/stories/2003040100541500.htm
So much for it not being “readily contagious”.
Actually, it might be levelling off:
- All the new cases are from one of 3 groups: medical staff, people at Amoy Gardens, family of previous victims.
- As many (or more) people are leaving hospital after recovering than entering as new cases.
- I was not the only person not wearing a mask on the way to work this morning.
The big uncertainty is the Mainland, where all news on this is censored, and no-one has a clue what’s happening. Maybe 100,000 people cross the border daily.
Read my blog (below) for a detailed recount of events in Plague City in the last few weeks.
Concern for SARS is certainly high in Ontario. Some cases have been found outside of the Toronto perimeter where the index case was. A “Code Orange” has been called and all Ontario hospitals now have to observe full precautions in patient care settings. In addition, elective clinics and operations are cancelled province-wide, the province has purchased ten million N95 masks, transfers between hospitals have been very much restricted and thousands of people are in quarantine. My emerg has emptied out, and I have to teleconference to the Ontario Commissioner of Health on a daily basis.
Of the 111 cases in Ontario (4 deaths, 7 intubated and doing poorly), 3 do not involve known contact. 8 involve health care workers, mainly ICU nurses. Things are not expected to relax over the next three weeks; indeed, since the incubation period seems to be 4-7 days (max 10-14), things are expected to get exponentially worse on Thursday and Friday of this week.
Quarrantine Camps
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2003/4/1/latest/11188HongKong&sec=latest
Ontario Cases
http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=194083FA-44CE-4074-AB15-C4F98F9C9831
Hmm. A colleague lives in Amoy Gardens and was not at work today. I guess I now know where she is.
Cough drop, anyone?
Its hard here to tell exactly how bad it is. A few doctors here have been circulating pamphlets in an effort to answer the flood of questions about the disease, and seem to be suggesting that the entire thing is being overplayed.
Still, this recent outbreak, all in the same building, suggests that it is highly contagious in certain environments.
I heard an interview with the head of Microbiology at a Toronto hospital today on the radio (I think Sianai?).
He said that the “Good news” is that it appears if you are healthy (no cardiovascular probs) and not elderly, he would expect you to recover 100%. He added that he has several patients that had it that appear to have recovered just fine and he would like to discharge now, but won’t as there are still too many unknowns with the disease. But their recovery appears to be complete, and if they had Pnemonia, he would have already sent them home. Some received no medication at all other than rest and lots of fluids.
Thats the good news. The bad news is that if you are elderly or have cardio problems, there is still no effective treatment and very serious.
CNN’s just announced that a jet landing in LAX has been quarranteened because 4 passengers onboard have reported SARS-like symptoms.
American school here has 3 cases of SARS. Don’t know if the school will close down or not.
I’m travelling to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia next week, luckily I haven’t heard of anyone being struck down the Sars there, hopefully I haven’t misheard… anyone have any information?
Mask-donning in HK: around 65-70%… streets are empty like they’ve never been before…
The worse thing was the Hong Kong rugby 7s tournament over the weekend. Thousands of people, mostly drunken Westerners, and not a mask in sight. I was told people got jeered if they wore them. Suffice it to say, I didn’t go.
Two new articles and an editorial on SARS have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Very interesting – not only do they describe the outbreak itself, but they also describe the clinical course and treatment of SARS patients. It seems that that a novel metapneumovirus, in addition to the coronavirus, may have a role in the pathogenesis of this disease.
This article (warning: PDF document) notes that although airborne transmission cannot be excluded at this time, it’s more likely that the virus was spread through direct and indirect contact. The authors note that “…follow-up of both patients and health care workers who were also exposed to Patient 2 [a patient who was only identified as having SARS post-mortem] has not revealed secondary transmission that cannot be explained by these routes.”
Here in Toronto, hospitals have stepped up their precautions this week. At my hospital, staff must have their temperatures taken and must fill out and sign a SARS screening test before they can enter the building. We’ve also started wearing goggles in addition to the masks, gowns, and gloves.
I was at the Rugby 7s and it was a great time! Very, very few of the westerners wore masks - and definately none in the infamous South Stands which is like a huge costume party complete with beer, vodka redbull, Pimms, meat pies - and lot’s of toy rugby balls and beer being whipped around. Most of the time, only about 1/5 of the people are actually watching the rugby! Some of the asian workers (ie security guards, concession workers) wore masks and I did see a few spectators wearing masks, though they were mostly asian and not in the South Stands. Many of the costumes incorporated masks - but only as a way of mocking the Asian fear complex. Now, I’m not saying that it was right - I’m just reporting! There was one girl wearing a gas mask - her photo was taken and it made its way into all the papers (including the Wall Street Journal) as if she was wearing the mask for protection. Dudes, it was a joke, take a look at the people behind her in the Bozo wigs…
Anyway, I seriously doubt anyone was mocked to take off a mask in any other part of the stadium, but maybe it happened in the South Stands. I think that the westerners just don’t think that they are going to catch it from other westerners - something fueled by the recent Amoy Gardens outbreak and probably the conception that all Chinese living conditions aren’t exactly clean. I haven’t heard of anyone who attended the 7’s come down with it yet, so we’ll see. Honestly, I felt pretty safe and, though I don’t live here (I’m on vacation - heck of a time to take a vacation, eh?) I get the feeling that most westerners are trying to be safe by going to places that they know, hanging out with people they know, not mixing it up in crowds, avoiding the MTR (metro) but I see very few of them wearing masks in public. Like maybe 1 in 10 max.
I returned from Bangkok last Tuesday with a helluva cold which was probably made worse by the plane flight back. I didn’t start getting better until Sunday, which is atypical for my response to colds. Can’t tell you how many times I have been asked if I have SARS.
Anyway, it didn’t go to my chest, I didn’t run any fever, I wasn’t producing sputum and of course I didn’t have respiratory insufficiency. I just blame the severeness of the cold to the fact that I probably contracted it while breathing through a rented scuba regulator for 6 hours over 2 days, primarily used by Australians, Europeans, and Asians. So a new serotype of a standard cold virus. But I still fancy the idea that I could have had a mild case…
i’ll have to protest that concept - we’ve seen hospitals (which i’ll assume is as sterile as it normally gets) come down with sars and still some people find an excuse to be racist… :rolleyes: that’s what you get for confusion in the air and transmission still being unclear
i understand you’re just reporting, and i’m just nickpicking your choice of ‘all’. that said i have no idea about the living conditions at amoy gardens
I wouldn’t have phrased it that way. “Hong Kong living conditions” would have been more accurate, and PC.
Amoy Gardens is a private sector housing development. IOW, the people who live there are richer than average (50% of HK people live in Govt housing projects). But it’s in Kowloon Bay - not exactly up-market. It’s a “lower middle class” place.
Picture 5 or 6 tower blocks on maybe 2 or 3 acres, each within 50 yds of another. Each block is, say, 40 storeys high, with 4 apartments per storey. Each apartment is 500 sq ft - 2 10 x 10 bedrooms, a living room, and a tiny bathroom and a tiny kitchen. A family of 4 lives in each one.
Now factor into this fairly crummy plumbing, air con, garbage disposal etc - works fine the first year or two, but it starts to disintegrate after a while. Welcome to Hong Kong.
Many western expats live in much nicer places than this. Hence (I guess) Powers106’s comment. But these vertical rabbit hutches are normal housing for the bulk of the population. If you don’t mind the crowded and noisy conditions, there’s normally no problem. I’ve never heard of an outbreak of disease in one place like this. Something very strange happened at Amoy Gardens - the SARS was transmitted vertically (ie it spread up and down the block rather than to people on the same floor). And everyone was infected at the same time. They think it might have been plumbing, but they’re still looking into it.
Then of course there is Chungking Mansions…
We got a briefing on the virus today at work, and the Asian Wall Street Journal had a lot of informative material on it. One interesting thing to note is that all of the fatalities have been over 40. The other thing is that it might not be airborne: the guys who contracted it in Prince of Wales hospital shared an airconditioning unit with an adjacent ward, all of whom are well.
One other thing: everyone is wearing surgical face masks. These things have a short use life: we were told by our firm’s medical adviser that they should be disposed of within 30 minutes of use. Any longer and the things breed germs. I noticed that the face mask of one of my colleagues was very soggy, and told him that he was breeding germs. He happily threw it away.
We had a false alarm at SJO (San Jose airport); five people were suspected of SARS, it seems two had a cold and a couple more coughed suspiciously, and everyone felt they had to take full precautions.
It was decided to let the other passengers go on to destinations, which of course had the potential of spreading SARS.
There was reference to a request made to screen passengers before they get on planes, but the response was that that required too much resources. I don’t get that, does anyone have information about that possibility? They are already screening for evil, can’t they add a question and/or take temperatures? Seems it would restrict the spread much more effectively.