SARS STATS - Revisited
While my postings seem to be prolific at times, comments to my posts have never been ?steady?. In fact, out of 959 entries, I have only had 149 comments. Imagine my response tonight when I got 22 comments all within the same 10 minute period. All 22 comments came from Canada and they were all in response to my SARS STATS entry. 20 of the comments came from the same yuk (person) and only stated that I ?suk?, and I ?suk even more?.
Just my luck, leave it to a yuk to say I suk.
The last two were from a different person who seemed to hit the comment button before they were done commenting. I would like to respond here to the last of those two comments.
Their original comment states:
The flu kills over 50,000 Americans per year (on average). SARS has killed less than 20 Canadians within a month, not to mention at an average age of 75, and these people have all been quite sick from something else. Why is the media blowing this way out of proportion??? Visit the URL if you don’t believe me. The URL they provided is http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/flu.htm
The fact sheet they reference states,
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 20 to 26 percent of Americans come down with the flu during each flu season, which typically lasts from November to March. Children are two to three times more likely than adults to get sick with the flu, and children frequently spread the virus to others. Although most people recover from the illness, CDC estimates that in the United States more than 100,000 people are hospitalized and about 50,000 to 70,000 people die from the flu and its complications every year.
While the CDC?s own website reports:
In the United States, these winter influenza epidemics can cause illness in 10% to 20% of people and are associated with an average of 36,000 deaths and 114,000 hospitalizations per year.
To be fair in my response, I will use the HIGHEST (or worst case) figures from the NIH fact sheet. In short, for arguments sake, we will assume that 26% of the American people come down with the flu each year and 70,000 of those people die from it (even though WE ALL know better).
A lot of people think the media and the World Health Organization are ?blowing this way out of proportion?, but I beg to differ and I will demonstrate below why the media and the WHO are NOT “blowing this way out of proportion”.
Our study of the FLU virus in the United States shows:
If the current population of the United States is approximately 290,830,539 and 26% (or 75,615,940) of the population come down with the flu, we can assume that approximately 70,000 (or 0.0925%) of the people will die from the flu or it’s complications. Yes, you read that correctly, using the numbers quoted by the NIH, less than one-tenth of one percent of the population of the United States will die from the flu virus (or it?s complications). Even in a worst case scenario like the “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918-1919 where the U.S. population was approximately 103,208,000, and roughly 500,000 people died, the deathrate from the FLU virus was only 0.484% or one-half of one percent.
Now, lets review the known cases of the SARS virus WORLDWIDE:
According to the WHO (as of 4/26/2003) there are 4,836 known cases of SARS, of which 293 (or 6.06%) have died. Did you get that? On a worldwide level the SARS virus is roughly 65.51 times more deadly than the flu virus in the United States.
If we breakdown those statistics by individual countries we see that,
China has 2753 known cases and 122 people (or 4.43%) have died which makes it 47.89 times as deadly in China.
Hong Kong has 1527 known cases and 121 people (or 7.92%) have died which makes it 85.62 times as deadly in Hong Kong.
Singapore has 198 known cases and 21 people (or 10.60%) have died which makes it 114.59 times as deadly in Singapore.
Vietnam has 63 known cases and 5 people (or 7.93%) have died which makes it 85.73 times as deadly in Vietnam.
And finally,
Canada has 142 known cases and 18 people (or 12.68%) have died which makes it 137.08 times as deadly in Canada. (The death toll in Canada rose over the weekend to 21 (or 14.79%) making it 159.89 times as deadly.
I think we can quickly surmise that the SARS virus is FAR more deadly than the FLU virus, and appropriate measures must be taken to contain it before it becomes a WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC. In fact, I do not think the media has given ENOUGH attention to the SARS virus, and several governments have not done enough to help contain it. The World Health Organization should be commended for issuing travel advisories to the affected areas until the outbreaks can be contained. It could be a couple years before a vaccine is developed, so containment looks like our best option at this point.
Sphere: Related Content4 Comments so far
Greetings. I was reading tha Greetings. I was reading that someone from Canada posted that “you suk” and whatnot. I may not be as educated as you are or as likely to find the number facts that you have found. But I do know that people that post their opinions that cannot spell, and that have nothing at all to say other than useless crap, should not be representing my country.
I am Canadian, and I am also only 18 years old. Far be it from me to point out the obvious but the person that posted that “you suk” is probably…10-16 years old, OR extremely un-educated.
Sooooo, I’m from Toronto and Sooooo, I’m from Toronto and I don’t have the least fear that SARS is gonna hit me, even while I live here and work right next to a couple of hospitals where they all have to wear masks.
Numbers can always be skewed anyway anyone wants them, it’s the numbers that nobody reports on that are probably more scary than the numbers they present to the world.
You may think I’m naive in having no fear of this disease, but quite frankly I do believe it’s a big hype - I think I might give more credence to the National Enquirer.
If you tell me a bunch of old people died of something, I’d have to say “ya, a bunch of old people are always going to die… their bodies are frail - they’ll die with or without SARS”.
Anyway, that’s my edition :)
Aren’t trolls that can’t spel Aren’t trolls that can’t spell great? ;)
The mortality rate in the US The mortality rate in the US is 0% - not one SARS patient has died of the approx 250 that got the disease.
What are US hospitals doing right?