Re: Re: It's not that easy ...
ice_dog said:
Obviously, you did not read that story in details . It says that
" The World Health Organization was aware of the mystery disease, at the time calling it Acute Respiratory Syndrome in China. The WHO issued a series of reports Feb. 11, Feb. 12, Feb. 14 and Feb. 20.
Actually I did read the story. But more to the point, I read the notices from WHO and from ProMed mail as they were issued. Forgive me for saying so, but I don't think you did the same.
First off, the World Health Organization did not issue "reports" on those dates; they issued press releases. There's a gigantic difference between a well researched, thoroughly documented report and a press release. Having said that, the initial press release from WHO dated Feb 11 reads (in full):
WHO has received reports from the Chinese Ministry of Health of an outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome with 300 cases and 5 deaths in Guangdong Province.
A team from the Ministry of Health is working with health officials in the province to investigate the outbreak and collect samples for laboratory analysis.
You have to understand, this is a very run-of-the-mill press release from WHO. Also around that time period were press releases on Yellow Fever, Meningococcal disease, cholera, suspected Lassa fever and accute haemorrhagic fever. In other words, this press release on what we now know is SARS simply got lost in the background noise.
There were other updates periodically throughout Feb. On the 27th, WHO issued another press release that read in part:
The Department of Health in Hong Kong has intensified its surveillance for influenza among patients with influenza-like symptoms or atypical pneumonia. No unusual increase in influenza activity has been detected over the past few weeks.
WHO is continuing to work closely with health authorities in Beijing, China and Hong Kong. Reagents for laboratory diagnosis of influenza A(H5N1) have been made available to the Ministry of Health in Beijing, the National Influenza Centres and to other members of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network.
So even in late February, WHO was still operating under the (false) assumption that this outbreak was merely a resurgence of H5N1 influenza. We now know that this was totally incorrect - it's not even the same virus that causes H5N1 & SARS.
There was one more press release on March 12 that noted a death in Vietnam from an atypical pneumonia, and that this pneumonia seemed to have caused 23 cases of nosocomial infection. The WHO noted:
Until more is known about the cause of these outbreaks, WHO recommends patients with atypical pneumonia who may be related to these outbreaks be isolated with barrier nursing techniques.
Barrier Nursing Techniques = wear a mask & gloves. Pretty much standard in North America for everything. You'll note that WHO did not recommend Proper Isolation Techniques, which is a totally different ballgame.
Finally on March 15, WHO took the unusual step of issuing a Global Travel Advisory. This was A Big Deal. In this press release WHO finally called the disease SARS.
My point is that no one, not WHO, not any scientists in the free world knew before March 15 that SARS was definitively a threat.
Now, Patient 1 (Toronto) travelled to Hong Kong on Feb 13 and returned home on Feb 23. She died on March 5.
So even in early March the world was still operating under the assumption that what was happening in China, in Hong Kong and in Vietnam was nothing more than a rapid spread of H5N1 (which can be sucessfully treated with standard methods if diagnosed properly). In
mid March we learned that this was not the case.
It was, quite simply, too late. The infections in Canada had already started. Thus the fine people at Scarborough Grace and even the Canadian (Ontario) government could not have done anything to prevent this from happening.
