[Back from an Easter vacation and catching up on CFP-week Politech submissions... The folks below are right: Initially SARS looked like it would grow exponentially but that has not turned out to be the case. A graph resembles a straight line. Though with reports in the last 24 hours that some crowded, financially-strapped hospitals in China are sending away probable SARS patients to go back home in their communities, China may be the exception. --Declan] --- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:07:34 -0700 Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease From: Andrew Stone <andrewat_private> To: declanat_private Hi Declan - exponential may be over stating it since although it quadrupled in week 1, it only doubled in week 2. Still scary, but so is lung cancer, AIDS, et al. On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 08:28 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote: >306 >1,323 >2,223 -> Andrew Stone * mailto:andrewat_private -> Stone Design * http://www.stone.com --- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:23:38 -0500 Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v551) From: James Dasher <jdasherat_private> To: declanat_private Small quibble: On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 10:28 AM, Declan McCullagh wrote: <snip> >Note the number of cases yesterday (2,223): >http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_04_02/en > >Compared to a week earlier (1,323): >http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_26/en > >And six days before that (306): >http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_20/en/ > >That's an exponential spread. At best, it's constrained growth. That's not to downplay the possible danger, and it certainly could *enter* a period of exponential - or at least geometric - growth; but it has not, yet. The Far-Eastern Economic Review has an article <http://www.feer.com/articles/2003/0304_10/p012region.html> criticizing the regime in Beijing for their Communist-secrecy-style handling of the disease and information about it, with additional stories available on the Web site. Enjoy the CFP, and may your inbox not flow to overfilling! Kind regards, James Dasher --- Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 10:40:33 -0600 From: "Orr, Daniel E" <daniel.e.orrat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease Declan, Although I have no medical credentials in any way, shape, or form, I note the latest statistics for SARS is 78 deaths out of 2,223 cases. This means a 3.5% mortality rate. This is lower than many forms of pneumonia, not to mention a host of other equally contagious bacteria and viruses. TB springs to mind, and of course Brezhnev was killed by "a cold." I imagine if deaths were controlled for age, i.e. drop the elderly and infants for whom many ilnesses prove fatal, the mortality rate would decline substantially. This would mean SARS poses even less of a threat to healthy adults. Although the emergence of a new, highly contagious, potentially fatal virus is always a cause for concern, I'm not sure SARS isn't as much media hype as actual threat. So I personally believe it's premature to start stockpiling guns and food in preparation for the great tribulation. That is, unless you are already. Cheers, Dan --- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:51:06 -0500 To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> From: Steven Cherry <s.cherryat_private> Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease >Note the number of cases yesterday (2,223): >http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_04_02/en > >Compared to a week earlier (1,323): >http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_26/en > >And six days before that (306): >http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_20/en/ > >That's an exponential spread. Declan, it may be alarming, but it isn't exponential. First, it turns out to be mixing apples and oranges -- last week W.H.O. expanded the date range to include previously unreported cases in China: 306 from 1 Feb 2003 To: 20 Mar 2003 1323 from 1 Feb 2003 To: 26 Mar 2003 2223 from 1 Nov 2002 To: 2 Apr 2003 But in any event, these totals are cummulative, so the week of 26 March saw about new 900 cases, about the same as the week prior. -- -- Steven Cherry, +1 212-419-7566 Senior Associate Editor IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave, New York, NY 10016 <s.cherryat_private> <http://www.spectrum.ieee.org> --- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 10:20:47 -0800 To: declanat_private From: mechat_private (Stanton McCandlish) Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-122.8 required=4.0 That's not actually exponential at all, just simply multiplicative, and the *rate* of infection would seem to be declining even if the exact headcount has risen. Two weeks ago, it looks like for each person infected, they were infecting an average of 4 or even 5 more people each; that's gone down as awareness of the disease is spreading, sufferers are being quarantined, etc. At this point it look like the average infectee is infecting 0-1 new people (in reality, it's probably more like for every 10 infectees, 9 go to the hospital and infect no one else, while one who just thinks (s)he has a cold or something infects 9 or 10 more people in a short time before realizing they are really sick.) Then again, a two-week spread isn't much of a data set... Let's see what the numbers look like in another month, and 6 months after that. --- Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 22:47:18 -0700 From: "Jerome C. Borden" <jcbordenat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease References: <5.2.0.9.0.20030403102840.01d55810at_private> Declan McCullagh wrote: >I've been almost entirely offline this week because of CFP and probably >won't catch up on email until Monday. But here's some information on SARS, >which we'll cover from time to time on Politech. Basically SARS appears to >be as infectious as the common cold -- it spreads by airborne droplets or >those left on surfaces -- except it can kill you. > >Here's the tech perspective: >"Disease infects business world" >http://news.com.com/2009-1022-995238.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed > >Note the number of cases yesterday (2,223): >http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_04_02/en > >Compared to a week earlier (1,323): >http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_26/en > >And six days before that (306): >http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_20/en/ > >That's an exponential spread. NOW SOME GOOD NEWS! Plot those points on a piece of graph paper and check the CURVE; although there are only three points, the Second Derivative appears to be Negative. For fans of the Sigmund Curve, it looks like the maturation area. Let's hope it is. Jerome from Layton, UT ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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