SARS mortality rate
April 22nd, 2003 | by aobaoill |I know my previous post on SARS took issue with the media coverage of the issue, but my view is moderating somewhat. It does appear that some of the features of the disease are cause for concern – such as the rapid mutating of the virus.
Declan McCullagh’s Politech list has provided some interesting – if sometimes conflicting – views on the virus. The most authoritative information seems to come from Henry Niman of Harvard medical school who has some interesting slicing and dicing of the figures for fatalities. First he explains the relevant concepts:
The mortality rate for SARS is commonly refered to as around 5% in the media (and compared to 20% for the 1918 flu epidemic). However, the mortality rate is really the number who died divided by the number who died or were discharged (assuming none of the discharged subsequently die of SARS).
Next, over a series of messages, he works through the WHO data to calculate the actual mortality rates:
| Date | Hong Kong | Canada | Singapore | China |
| April 19 | 18.2% | 18.2%* | 13.8% | 5.4% |
| April 18 | 17.6% | 20.7%* | 15.0% | 5.5% |
| April 17 | 19.3% | 20.7%* | 14.2% | 5.5% |
| April 16 | 19.2% | 26.0% | 13.3% | 5.5% |
| April 15 | 18.7% | 32.5% | 13.3% | 6.1% |
| April 14 | 17.0% | 32.5% | 12.5% | 5.6% |
| April 12 | 14.0% | 27.8% | 10.5% | 5.3% |
| April 11 | 15.9% | 28.6% | 10.5% | 5.3% |
| April 1 | 16.3% | 31.3% | 10.7% | 5.1% |
Finally, the mandatory copyright notice:
————————————————————————-
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/
2 Responses to “SARS mortality rate”
By Min on May 8, 2003 | Reply
The View The Heart Of The SARS Battleground – A Note From SINGAPORE
SARS statistics tell of mortality rates and recovery rates. Statistics transmit figures around the world, to WHO, CDC governments and Medical Centres, Biologists and Biotech researchers, pharmaceutical giants and scientists turned entrepreneurs. Money is to be made from the first-to-market diagnostic kits, and from the right antibiotics. Big Money.
SARS statistics do not tell the story from the middle of the battle fields.
In Singapore, legislation (passed speedily in Parliament) demands that every person who has been “in contact” with SARS patients, including being in the same physical environment such as an open vegetable market, shall be put to home quarantine for 10 days. Leaving home during that time (for whatever reason) attracts a jail sentence. After jail, few will employ you in a proper job forever.
Fever above 38 degrees Celsius and sore throat plus a cough (all SARS symptoms, but includes the common flu as well) attracts an ambulance ride (mandatory under law) to a designated SARS hospital called Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Even if you have a family, children, job, and other serious obligations, you are quarantined and put under guard. People who have SARS and those who do not, are placed together in that building under the same conditions.
Children do not get to see their parent (if suspected of SARS) for weeks. Workers do not get to work and businesses cannot run. There are no guidelines to confine and quarantine a SARS suspect except via a common flu’s sypmtoms. Then all who have no likelihood of getting SARS are put together with those who have contracted it.
Singapore has the practical solution for SARS that could be studied by the Nazis, Communists, Facists etc.
By liuguifen on Oct 20, 2003 | Reply
I wanted to tank part in some SARS research work.