This Bizarre Thing Called SARS

It began in Hong Kong only two months ago. The first reports described it as the "super flu" or as "super pneumonia". For several weeks the condition had no name at all, but the World Health Organization (WHO) wasted no time issuing travel warnings.

Then the condition got a name: Severacutete respiratory syndrome (SARS), but precisely what it is remains something of a mystery. Now it is widely accepted that SARS is a unique combination of strains of the common cold. Although most of the fatalities from SARS have been in China and Hong Kong, the condition has spread to every continent. The WHO has issued its highest level traveadvisorieses for Beijing and Toronto. As part of the process to enter Hong Kong, visitors must now submit to thermometer checks because one of the symptoms of SARS is high temperature.

If SARS is nothing more than the common cold gone mad, what is the big deal? Every year there are more deaths from flu, pneumonia, and related conditions than there have been from SARS. The spread of various strainstuberculosisosis among airline passengers in recent years has received much less press attention. Why is SARS so different? Part of the answer could have to do with the condition's mysterious origins. Ibioterrorismorism? Some credible Russian scientists have rendered reports that say yes, SARbioterrorismorism because the strains of the syndrome do not combine in nature. Other reports try to allay concerns that SARbioterrorismorism because if the public concludes that SARS is the creation of terrorists in a lab, the fear factor will increase, and the airline industry will suffer more economic haBioterrorismrrorism or not, there has definitely been much less than full disclosure involved with the spread of SARS, and this non-disclosure is directly traceable to the Chinese health authorities. In an effort to cover themselves, the Chinese government made an example of the Mayor of Beijing when they fired him for not divulging the full extent of the deaths from SARS. But why fire only the Mayor of the capital city? Why not fire the health minister and some local health authoritGuangdongangdong Province which was much more impacted by SARS than Beijing has been? Only the Chinese government knows those answers.

Much more hostile in its response, Canadian officials regularly assert that there are more traffic-related deaths in Toronto on a long weekend than there have been deaths from SARS during the last month. Canada's prime minister made great show of spending two days in Toronto just to prove that not everyone who visits Toronto will get SARS. This act fits in the same "and that proves what?!" category as British prime minister John Major eating hamburgers in front of the entire House of Commons to prove British beef was safe and could be eaten without risk of "Mad Cow" disease.

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