Re: SARS!

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu 10 Apr 2003 - 21:58:22 GMT

  • Next message: derek gatherer: "Re: SARS"

    >From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com>
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >Subject: Re: SARS!
    >Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 19:43:03 -0700
    >
    >When the disease was just getting started, it was known as atypical
    >pneumonia. A friend of mine caught it at that stage and didn't know what
    >it was he had. Then WHO came along and started calling it SARS, something
    >which the people in Hongkong and Canton wouldn't have thought to do because
    >Hongkong is known as the SAR or the Special Administrative Region. Lots of
    >irony wrapped up in that to my way of thinking. :)
    >
    >
    I read that the diease may have started around last November in China. Did China undereact in the early stages of the epidemic?

    Another idea on the topic of individual variation on the awareness measure. Evn if many people are "aware" of SARS, at any given time how many are aware of the presnt status of the diease as in where it is occurring and to what degree. I've heard a little about Florida having suspected cases, which is a serious concern for me. If someone shows up at my local hospital's ER showing possible signs of the disease, then what about local awareness of this new development, versus global awareness of the epidemic in general? How long before members of the local population become aware of this and ow does this knowledge spread? There's also even more serious concern over, given local presence of the infectious agent, of how it might spread locally. There would be the spread of knowedge about the local cases and spread of the agent itself, generating new local cases and then spread of knowlddge about these newer local cases and so on...

    If there were local suspected cases which turned out not to be SARS, there would still be the spread of rumors about SARS and public reaction to the cases.

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