SARS in Toronto

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2003-04-21 10:56am

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/04/21/sa ... index.html

TORONTO, Ontario (CNN) -- Public transit commuters around Toronto may have been exposed to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and should check themselves for symptoms, Toronto public health officials said Sunday.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-04-21 11:07am

fuck, thats bad. are they passing out useless paper masks yet?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-04-21 11:47am

I heard that entire districts may be quarantined if this continues, this does not bode well for the Canadian health system which seems grossly incompetent from these reports.

Hopefully it will be nipped in the bud and eventually lose hosts, but if not then we may be seeing the start of another sink for this disease to grow in outside of China. This could easily spread to America if care isn't taken and it's already looking as bad as HK.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-21 12:16pm

That ranks about the same as US terror alerts on the usefulness scale

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-04-21 12:27pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:That ranks about the same as US terror alerts on the usefulness scale

Guess the Canucks are just going to have to live with their new visitor until a vaccine programme can be implemented in a few years.

At least China has finally come clean about their cover-up which did more harm than good.

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2003-04-21 01:11pm

Let's hope they can keep it contained, at least to some extent...

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-04-21 01:22pm

Let's all buy those biohazard suits (eg. movie "Outbreak"). That should cause a stir. I wonder if the come with a Dart Vader-like breathing sound.

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-04-21 01:47pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:This could easily spread to America if care isn't taken and it's already looking as bad as HK.

Toronto is nowhere near the nightmare of Hong Kong.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-04-21 02:11pm

now i've heard it is spread by cockroaches... is that true? if so Toronto is one of the cleanest cities in the world, it's odd that SARS has gained such a strong foothold there.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-04-21 02:41pm

Next of Kin wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:This could easily spread to America if care isn't taken and it's already looking as bad as HK.
Toronto is nowhere near the nightmare of Hong Kong.

It is the second worst country outside of China, in a couple of weeks at this rate it WILL be as bad as HK is now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2963567.stm

All hopes of this thing slowing down have just been dashed.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-04-21 02:42pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:now i've heard it is spread by cockroaches... is that true? if so Toronto is one of the cleanest cities in the world, it's odd that SARS has gained such a strong foothold there.

It has been shown that cockroaches can act as a vector, yes. But it just shows how even a clean city like Toronoto is being affected to the point of mass quarantine.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-04-21 03:27pm

The Toronto health council's beginning to sound a hell of a lot like Saddam's information minister. "The SARS outbreak is contained and localized, there is no problem, please don't panic, if you have questions call the hotline", what a load of bullshit. The "quarantines" they're doing is a complete joke, they're voluntary quarantines for cryin' out loud, they're just asking people suspected of having SARS to stay home and isolate themselves, and they're doing nothing to make sure people actually do so. There's already been cases of people under quarantine going to work and spreading it around the whole company, and new cases are popping up every day that are linked to the original outbreak. It's already too late to do anything meaningful without drastically affecting the lives of everyone in the city. About the only thing that can be done now is to seal off every suspect case of SARS and post armed guards to make sure they stay put, and have all hospital staff screened and quarantined as needed.

The way I see things, Toronto's just doing a feel-good PR thing that does very little to actually combat the spread of SARS. It's like "look! we have an info helpline! We're asking people to quarantine themselves, and look, it's on the news every night! We're doing something!". If this keeps up the only solution will be to lock down the entire city for a few weeks until everyone with SARS either dies or recovers. As you can tell I'm rather pissed with the way it's been handled so far and I'm quite pessimistic about the whole thing.

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-04-21 03:47pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:fuck, thats bad. are they passing out useless paper masks yet?

Here's an interesting link to the CBC; they did a few lab tests on common masks that people are using at hospitals and at home. The tests were performed on common household masks (the ones you would find in a hardware store right down to the simple bandana) and the surgical masks used in hospitals. The surgical masks only filtered out 62 percent of the particles!

However, the mask that is being recommended is the N95 mask as it filtered out 97 percent of SARS-sized particles.

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-04-21 03:51pm

aerius wrote: As you can tell I'm rather pissed with the way it's been handled so far and I'm quite pessimistic about the whole thing.

Funny that Vancouver has only three reported cases of SARS and no deaths; they even had to shut the SARS clinic down because of the fewer numbers. What did T.O. do to fumble the ball?