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SARS and the Government....
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25-04-2003 11:52pm#1
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Sparks I do know they're a bunch of *&^%! but when public health is involved you kinda hope they'll rise to the occasion...I also find it interesting only you replied and only to poke fun at me !
Anyone would think a deadly virus and government incompetance were not important.
Mike.0 -
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Mike,
Well, I did say not too much fun
Bonkey,
It's precisely because of the relative lack of knowlege about SARS that the health service and the government need to be taking more direct action. So far as we know so far, SARS has a 10% mortality rate (latest from the WHO, it's up from 6%) and is spread through close contact, most likely bodily fluids including saliva and sweat along with what most people thought of when I said "bodily fluids". It can survive for an unknown amount of time on an exposed surface (most coronaviruses can, for up to 3 hours in some cases) including coins and notes. It has a ten-day incubation time and has recently mutated so that it affects intestines as well as lungs. It's not airborne (we think), but sneezing can spread it.
Given all that, I'd be damn concerned to learn what it can do and how much we need to worry - and until we know, I'd be isolating any and all cases that show up. Not examining them and then sending them back to a public hostel. Some asian doctors may be following this course of action, but they have far more cases than we've seen so far.
However, the criticisms leveled at the government that I have being paying attention to are not so much "Mr Martin, why haven't you discovered a cure yet" as "Mr Martin, why do we still have a top-heavy mess of a civil-service beaurocracy in the health system, with 11 health boards and far too little inter-departmental communication, resulting in such incidents as the waterford SARS suspect case going unreported to the national centre for disease surveillance for nearly a week, and the earlier case of an elderly man receiving a notice of an available bed for surgery four days after his death?"0 -
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Oh god, how many more SARS threads are we going to see....
Ok, I'd like to point out that
A) I work in Public Health
I have no respect or esteem for teh current government.
This SARS things is being blown waaaay out of proportion.
There was a Legionnaires' case in Waterford the other night and I was contacted 8 times by non medical people thinking it was SARS after hearing news reports.
Things to know about SARS:
1. It is fatal in a very low amount of people who are infected.
2. the high majority of these people are very old, very young or have a compromised immune system.
3. The reason the mortality rate is so high to begin with is because these people catch it while in hospital.
It was a doctor who sent the Suspected SARS cases home and they made the bang on right call!
Why? because if you have a disease that has a high mortality rate in sick people do you a) Keep them in a hospital surrounded by sick people thus elevating the chance of the infection spreading and mortality rate rising b) Send them home to be isolated in bed?
The other option is to put them in camps or something... is that what you suggest?
Guys calm down! Theres a greater chance of me going mental from all the SARS crap I keep hearing and killing you as I fire into a crowd with an AK47 than there is of you cathcing SARS in Ireland and dying.0 -
Originally posted by sykeirl
I'd like to point out that
A) I work in Public Health I have no respect or esteem for teh current government.
Theres a greater chance of me going mental from all the SARS crap I keep hearing and killing you as I fire into a crowd with an AK47 than there is of you cathcing SARS in Ireland and dying.
...its worse than I feared! :eek:
Mike.0 -
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Mike,
Yes, Billion - fingerpokentrubbles
sykeirl,
Erm, no, as I understand it, the original Legionaires case was airborne. Of course, I may have read a seriously inaccurate set of reports, but as I understand it, it spread around the hotel through the air conditioning system.
I got the report that the second case wasn't reported from RTE news on radio one.
SARS is an irish issue because the irish population is worried about it. It's similar to what engineers get taught about bridges - a bridge may be well within safety tolerances and still be swaying all over the place - but noone will use it if it sways too much. It's a case of giving both real safety and the appearance of safety for those without specialist knowlege.
I don't think that they should be isolated at home when we don't know enough about SARS - or did you already know it's full history? It's already been reported to have mutated once remember. And all the reports I've been hearing for the last few weeks say that it has a 10% mortality rate and kills those with healthy immune systems just as effectively as the young/old/comprimised.
And I'm not panicing about SARS - I'm concerned that we can't seem to handle a poorly-understood contagion on a small scale. This time, we seem to have gotten off lightly - what if, as I said, next time it's a resistant strain of TB?
You're right, we'll probably get a kneejerk reaction - but that's not the fault of those of us who are being worried by the media and not well-informed by our own health service. It's the direct fault of the politicians in government.
ps. AK47s are damn hard to get through "normal" channels here. You're more likely to go nuts with a semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun (they're perfectly legal). Never let it be said I don't try to help the guys'n'gals in the medical system 0 -
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Bonkey,
AK47s used to be totally legal in the UK too up until some nut got given permission to buy a self-loading rifle even though no local clubs were asked, and he went on a shooting spree. All SLRs were then banned. Then we had some nut go on a spree in dunblane even though local clubs had all refused to have the nut as a member due to mental instability. All handguns were banned. The next month, some nut went on a spree through a london school with kitchen knives...
*sigh*
Seems that kneejerk reactions are the preferred method of dealing with things people don't understand.
And they're deceptive in that they don't actually solve the problem, which then lets the next dunblane happen.
You have to love swiss gun control, it's the jesse ventura model ("Putting two rounds in the same hole from 30 paces is what I call gun control").
That's the difference I think, between the US system and other systems - in most other places, it's hard to get a gun without getting trained in how not to kill yourself with it accidentally.
Okay, offtopic time over
Yes, people get worked up about SARS, but as I've said, I'm not panicing about SARS - I'm worrying about the lack of a coordinated response to it. Had SARS been nastier, or been a resistant form of something like TB, we might now be in serious trouble.
(And people don't worry about coconut trees because they can see them coming - I recall seeing an OU program explaining how the perceived level of risk has to do with the visibility of the threat, how well it's understood, who it affects, what the reward is for taking the risk, how much control people have over whether or not they take that risk, and eventually, waaay down at the end of the list, what the actual severity of the risk was.)0 -
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Originally posted by Sparks
sykeirl,
Erm, no, as I understand it, the original Legionaires case was airborne. Of course, I may have read a seriously inaccurate set of reports, but as I understand it, it spread around the hotel through the air conditioning system.
I got the report that the second case wasn't reported from RTE news on radio one.
No, its not a case of you mis-reading it, its just you understand it wrong
The "airbourne" case ocured in an air conditioning unit in leisure pool in a hotel. Water, containing Legionella got into the system
and was dispersed in water mist spray.
In epidemipological terms this is NOT and airbourne disease. Legionella is water bourne. Without the water vapour there is no transmission. Thus it cannot be spread by airbourne infection unless the victims come into contact with the primary source.
As for the RTE 1 report, this is a station run by the people you are slagging off in the post to begin with. I don't believe the report to be accurate.Originally posted by Sparks
SARS is an irish issue because the irish population is worried about it. It's similar to what engineers get taught about bridges - a bridge may be well within safety tolerances and still be swaying all over the place - but noone will use it if it sways too much. It's a case of giving both real safety and the appearance of safety for those without specialist knowlege.
The only reason the worry exists is because of media scaremongering. If it was reported by the media in a sensible, accurate and responsible manner then people wouldn't be as worried.Originally posted by Sparks
I don't think that they should be isolated at home when we don't know enough about SARS - or did you already know it's full history? It's already been reported to have mutated once remember. And all the reports I've been hearing for the last few weeks say that it has a 10% mortality rate and kills those with healthy immune systems just as effectively as the young/old/comprimised.
Where do you want to put them? In hospitals where the chance is they will infect people who are at risk or doctors and nurses?
The fact is, there is little you can do to treat SARS unless it risks mortality. The international protocol for an emergency high contagion disease epidemic is to advice people to stay away from hospitals for this reason.
As for the mortality rate and healthy victims. Until I see it in a memo at work I don't believe it. Where are your reports from? CNN? Sky News?
Gimme a break!Originally posted by Sparks
And I'm not panicing about SARS - I'm concerned that we can't seem to handle a poorly-understood contagion on a small scale. This time, we seem to have gotten off lightly - what if, as I said, next time it's a resistant strain of TB?
You don't really understand the nature of disease do you?
See what SARS is doing, is what it has evolved to do. It is designed to infect and spread. It is a masterpiece.
Now, on a world scale, I'm not surprised given teh way the Honk Kong authorities initially treated the matter, that they have the outbreak they have. However, we are not China and don't have the same population congestion issues they have so it should not be a problem here, if it ever even reaches here.Originally posted by Sparks
You're right, we'll probably get a kneejerk reaction - but that's not the fault of those of us who are being worried by the media and not well-informed by our own health service. It's the direct fault of the politicians in government.
No its the direct fault of the media for trying to sell news by inducing fear.Originally posted by Sparks
ps. AK47s are damn hard to get through "normal" channels here. You're more likely to go nuts with a semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun (they're perfectly legal). Never let it be said I don't try to help the guys'n'gals in the medical system
As I was saying... extremely unlikely.0 -
sykeirl,
Ah. Nope, I reread the original reports - they had it wrong and didn't mention the whole water mist partNo, its not a case of you mis-reading it, its just you understand it wrong
Erm, RTE is run by the Health department?As for the RTE 1 report, this is a station run by the people you are slagging off in the post to begin with. I don't believe the report to be accurate. Well, to be honest, knowing people that have worked there, I can understand thinking that they're a lazy bunch of sods, but that level of inaccuracy amounts to libel.
Or if the Health department had spread out as much information as possible - hell, the guys in Toronto could do it, why couldn't we?The only reason the worry exists is because of media scaremongering. If it was reported by the media in a sensible, accurate and responsible manner then people wouldn't be as worried.
The 10% figure is from the latest press release from the WHO.As for the mortality rate and healthy victims. Until I see it in a memo at work I don't believe it. Where are your reports from? CNN? Sky News?
'scuse me? So I'm a panicing idiot in one post and then instead of telling me the facts (some of which you don't yet know yourself) you just patonise me? This might be why some people are concerned at being ill-informed by the Health system.You don't really understand the nature of disease do you?
It's not a masterpiece. It's a simple coronavirus from the few reports that we are getting. About as complex as influenza or a common cold. Infective rates are lower than for some of the nastier bugs, and it can't survive more than a few hours at most outside the host.See what SARS is doing, is what it has evolved to do. It is designed to infect and spread. It is a masterpiece.
While they certainly deserve some serious penalties for doing so, it's the job of the Health system to keep the public informed as to the level of risk; the spread of the disease; whether or not we should be seriously concerned; and what steps to take to protect ourselves. I've seen none of that so far in the press. Maybe I missed it? There is at least info on the websites, but for something that's gotten everyone so wound up, I would have thought that something more proactive on the part of the Health boards than putting info on a website (not that the website isn't necessary). Hell, there's supposed to be a leaflet being handed out at airports - why wasn't that posted when the level of panic was first seen?No its the direct fault of the media for trying to sell news by inducing fear.0 -
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