Post by thread:[OT]: SARS <-- : [OT] m'chip

> > "Additionally, the spread throughout Asia of SARS, an acute respiratory > > illness, is inhibiting business travel and, in some cases, purchasing > > decisions, as many customers are temporarily closing plants to avoid the > > spread of the disease." > > > > Compared to other killer diseases (eg influenza, malaria) and even > > chronic atmospheric pollution from traffic, SARS doesn't really rate. So > > is the panic concern about it justified ? SARS could kill (choose one) - 1% of everyone on earth - Most people on earth - All people on earth. The first is a reasonable probability at present. The last is exceedingly unlikely. Some important factors are - - It's not know with precision what it is yet. - It's not known how infectious it is and/or exactly how it is and isn't spread. - It's origins are unknown. - It's interactions with other diseases is as yet unknown. I have heard it suggested that - - It is especially virulent for those with Chlamydia. - It was originally / is being spread by cockroaches. - It is only passed by transfer of oral fluids. - It was originally spread by a single Chinese doctor visiting Hong Kong - It can be spread by material left on surfaces (eg door knobs) - It is surprisingly infectious and has spread through emergency wards and to disease management experts by mechanisms as yet unknown. - It is mutating to new forms - It is completely untreatable and must simply be allowed to run its course (ie a standard viral infection). Some or all of the above may or may not be true :-) :-) :-) :-) The point is - SOME of the above is probably true and until we have a better idea of which is which we should be excessively cautious. As we don't as yet know how cautious "excessively cautious" is, we should be very cautious indeed. Death rate of those who contract it seems to be about 4%. While it is said that those who die usually have underlying problems, all that is saying is that 4% of people have underlying problems severe enough to kill them. IF it was contagious and unstoppable enough to infect everyone on earth at this death rate that would be about 180 million people - about 5 times as many as the Great Flu of 1918 - 1919 which is estimated to have killed 30 to 40 million people. (ie about as virulent overall per capita). It is, of course, possible but unlikely that it is the product of a genetic engineering germ warfare factory. If so, we could be in for an interesting time. If not, we could be in for an interesting time. Note that the reports from the USA are NOT consistent with those from anywhere else. USA reports 150 + suspected infections but NO deaths. Everywhere else where it is entrenched has close to a 4% fatality rate. A number of US people SHOULD have died by now. This suggests that either. - US cases are largely not really SARS or - The US is lying or - The US has managed to find a treatment. At a survival rate of 96% a population of 150 with no deaths has a probability of about 0.96^150 = 0.002. ie there is a 1 in 500 chance of the US figures being correct if it IS SARS that they have. Worth a thought? Russell McMahon -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email spam_OUTlistservTakeThisOuTmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

> > > Compared to other killer diseases (eg influenza, malaria) and even > > > chronic atmospheric pollution from traffic, SARS doesn't really rate. So > > > is the panic concern about it justified ? The problem with disease is that people have a (perhaps cultural?) fear of plagues. This goes above and beyond the actual damage caused by the disease. In addition, of course, the timing of this outbreak with the USA/Iraq war scares people (no, I don't believe that this is a terrorist action). Also SARS seems to be *highly* contageous and has been spread world-wide by this time. This will have multiple effect on the economies of *many* countries. I feel that the health care facilities of any city with suspected infections will be quickly overwhelmed, primarily by people who either don't have SARS or have a minor case. > Note that the reports from the USA are NOT consistent with those from > anywhere else. USA reports 150 + suspected infections but NO deaths. The problem with SARS is that it may be highly under-reported. It is possible that most people who get the virus just think of it as a cold or flu. Also if this is caused by a type of cold virus, then it could mutate rapidly -- and chance favors a less dangerous version at this point. I strongly suspect that if there have been deaths in the USA they have been listed under another cause. I'm not sure there is a good and cheap test for this yet. -- D. Jay Newman ! Pudge controls the weather. .....jayKILLspam@spam@sprucegrove.com ! http://enerd.ws/~jay/ ! Oh good. My dog found the chainsaw. -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listservKILLspammitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

I'm pretty sure Russell is correct. Survival rate and probability of survival are the same (unless you know additional information about an individual case). Remember, in order for there to be one death in 150 cases, only ONE person had to die, and each person has a 4% chance of dying, so that the probability of no one dying is 1 minus the sum of the probabilities of all the ways in which one or more people might have died. It's like making a machine with 150 parts that are each only 96% reliable. It would be amazing if that thing did not fail in some way. Sean At 08:30 AM 4/10/2003 -0700, you wrote: {Quote hidden}> At a survival rate of 96% a population of 150 with no deaths has a > probability of about 0.96^150 = 0.002. > >That doesn't sound correct, intuitively speaking. (Of course, my experience >is that probability is frequently counter-intuitive...) With a survival >rate of 96%, you'd expect 6 deaths in 150 cases, and no deaths is only >slightly surprising... Perhaps "survival rate" is not the same as the >probability of dying... > >BillW > >-- >http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! >email EraseMElistservspam_OUTTakeThisOuTmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listservspam_OUTmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

> With a survival > rate of 96%, you'd expect 6 deaths in 150 cases, and no deaths is only > slightly surprising... With a chance of 0.002 (the math *is* correct) no deaths would be very surprising, in fact much more surprising than a nonse result from the average 'scientific' experiment (which commonly uses 0.005 or even 0.05 as false-positive rate). Wouter van Ooijen -- ------------------------------------------- Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: http://www.voti.nl consultancy, development, PICmicro products -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email @spam@listservKILLspammitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

> -----Original Message----- > From: pic microcontroller discussion list > [KILLspamPICLISTKILLspamMITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Wouter van Ooijen > Sent: Friday, 11 April 2003 1:01 AM > To: RemoveMEPICLISTTakeThisOuTMITVMA.MIT.EDU > Subject: Re: [OT]: SARS <-- : [PICLIST] [OT] m'chip > > > > With a survival > > rate of 96%, you'd expect 6 deaths in 150 cases, and no deaths is only > > slightly surprising... > > With a chance of 0.002 (the math *is* correct) no deaths would be very > surprising, in fact much more surprising than a nonse result from the > average 'scientific' experiment (which commonly uses 0.005 or even 0.05 > as false-positive rate). > > Wouter van Ooijen And any minte now we will start to play hitch hikers guide to the galaxy ;o) "Probability 1 ^10-6 and rising" Lol Regards, Kat. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.443 / Virus Database: 248 - Release Date: 10/01/2003 -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email spamBeGonelistservspamBeGonemitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

> At a survival rate of 96% a population of 150 with no deaths has a > probability of about 0.96^150 = 0.002. > > That doesn't sound correct, intuitively speaking. (Of course, my experience > is that probability is frequently counter-intuitive...) With a survival > rate of 96%, you'd expect 6 deaths in 150 cases, and no deaths is only > slightly surprising... Perhaps "survival rate" is not the same as the > probability of dying... I'm pretty sure we are well out in one probability tail here OR something is not as it is said to be. The margin of error test to 3 std devs is Error = 1.98 sqrt(P*(1-P)/N) Where P is the expected probability per event. This assumes normal distribution and a few other things but works well enough in many cases. E&OE Worst case (widest error) you set P=0.5 and this collapses to Error = 1/sqrt(N) which is where they get the margin of error statements for polls. It works very well - next time they tell you the poll has a margin of error of say 5% you can reverse this N = 1/Error^2 so 1/(.05)^2 = 400 samples. In this case P=0.04 so Error = 1.98 *(0.04 * 0.96/150) = 0.032 ie margin or error is 3% so expected deaths for a 150 sample would be 4% +/- 3% ie a 0% result is "rather improbable". Stay tuned. Russell McMahon -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email EraseMElistservmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

US figure could be accurate because the situations are different. 1. US has given influenza vaccine to their citizens when they are young, but I think no Asia countries do. 2. Also some strains of SARS virus seems to be more fatal than the other. The strain from the HK hotel is responsible for many of the death outside China/HK, It is responsible for 95% of the inflected case here. Some people are also spreading the virus much better than others. Here, a lady that caught the virus from the HK Hotel transmitted the virus to 95% of the reported cases here (primary, or secondary). And that strain is quite fatal, as it killed both her parents and her pastor, and still spreading on. Ling SM -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email RemoveMElistservEraseMEEraseMEmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

> 1. US has given influenza vaccine to their citizens when they are > young, > but I think no Asia countries do. This is a very interesting point. I never knew that. But which vaccine do they give? Isn't the vaccine changed every year or so to combat the particular strain that WILL hit us for the following year? > Some people > are also spreading the virus much better than others. Here, a lady > that > caught the virus from the HK Hotel transmitted the virus to 95% of the > reported cases here (primary, or secondary). She gets around! :-( Cheers, Sean -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email RemoveMElistservspam_OUTKILLspammitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

AVOID hosipitals at all costs. The cases here are quite well tracked, so far 100% tracking to the source. Just last night, I think they found one of the reasons why hosipitals is such a contagious place. Presently the best and earliest indicator for SARS is the adnormally high tempertaure (>38 C) of the infected, though not 100%. The problem is in hosipitals, there are patients on all kind of medications. Some of them caught the virus and start spreading without showing the usual symptons because the symptons are masked by their medications. So the virus has a free-run in his/her ward and to the medical staff, and then spread among the medical staff duirng their briefings and meetings, and then to other patients, and to visitors. Looks like the influenza jet is given every year. It will be educational to compare the countries that practise influenza jet and those that don't after this crisis. Japan is another country that practise influenza jet, so far their figure is too good to believe - less than 20 infected and all recover. Ling SM {Quote hidden}> > 1. US has given influenza vaccine to their citizens when they are > > young, > > but I think no Asia countries do. > > This is a very interesting point. I never knew that. But which vaccine > do they give? Isn't the vaccine changed every year or so to combat the > particular strain that WILL hit us for the following year? > > > Some people > > are also spreading the virus much better than others. Here, a lady > > that > > caught the virus from the HK Hotel transmitted the virus to 95% of the > > reported cases here (primary, or secondary). > > She gets around! :-( -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList EraseMEpiclist-unsubscribe-requestspamspamBeGonemitvma.mit.edu>

"Flu vaccines" in the US are not given to anyone as a matter of course, although they're recomended in certain professions (teachers, healthcare workers, people with immune deficiencies of various sorts.) I suspect that most of the cases in the US (or SUSPECTED cases in the US. I hear now that there are only 5 cases CONFIRMED to be SARS) are amoung international travelers and their immediate acquaintances. It wouldn't surprise me if they: 1) Are relatively "wealthy." (well fed, enviormentally controlled living space, etc.) 2) Are in relatively good health otherwise. 3) HAVE had flu vaccines (and perhaps other common "travel vaccines.") 4) have easy access to health care. Spread some SARS in the inner-city slums or homeless shelters, and watch the death rate climb. If anyone pays attention... BillW -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList RemoveMEpiclist-unsubscribe-requestKILLspammitvma.mit.edu>

4/10/03 4:06:01 AM, Russell McMahon <EraseMEapptechEraseMEPARADISE.NET.NZ> wrote: >Note that the reports from the USA are NOT consistent with those from >anywhere else. USA reports 150 + suspected infections but NO deaths. >Everywhere else where it is entrenched has close to a 4% fatality rate. A >number of US people SHOULD have died by now. This suggests that either. >- US cases are largely not really SARS or >- The US is lying or >- The US has managed to find a treatment. The head of the CDC favors the former. She said that the US is using a much broader definition of "suspected SARS case" than the rest of the world. IIRC, the majority of the SARS deaths were in elderly people. It's possible that the exposure demographics in the US are different enough to change the death rate (AFAIK, none of the US cases have been the result of transmission by health-care workers, because of conscious efforts to eliminate that risk, and that would reduce exposure to the immunocompromised or elderly). >At a survival rate of 96% a population of 150 with no deaths has a >probability of about 0.96^150 = 0.002. >ie there is a 1 in 500 chance of the US figures being correct if it IS SARS >that they have. That does assume that all 150 cases are actually SARS, that it's the same strain as elsewhere, and that the susceptibility factors are the same as elsewhere. There's also the fact that most of the actual or suspected SARS cases in the US are fairly new, meaning the infected people are mostly in the early stages of the disease. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList @spam@piclist-unsubscribe-request@spam@spam_OUTmitvma.mit.edu>

4/10/03 10:16:54 PM, SM Ling <spamBeGoneipal11KILLspamSINGNET.COM.SG> wrote: >> > 1. US has given influenza vaccine to their citizens when they are >> > young, >> > but I think no Asia countries do. >> >> This is a very interesting point. I never knew that. But which vaccine >> do they give? Isn't the vaccine changed every year or so to combat the >> particular strain that WILL hit us for the following year? > >Don't know actually what is it, labelled as "influenzae" for 1 of my kids. >We never have such thing here, even now. That's not for the influenza virus. It's for a bacterium called haemophilus influenzae, which causes meningitis. See <http://www.cdc.gov/health/hib.htm>. In the US, the influenza vaccine is most commonly given to people over 65 or who have certain conditions that render them unusually vulnerable, though anybody can get it if they want it and are willing to pay for it (it's pretty inexpensive). -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads

--Apple-Mail-2-952860685 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed On Saturday, Apr 12, 2003, at 15:28 Australia/Sydney, Eric Bohlman wrote: > That's not for the influenza virus. It's for a bacterium called > haemophilus influenzae, which > causes meningitis. See <http://www.cdc.gov/health/hib.htm>. In the > US, the influenza vaccine is > most commonly given to people over 65 or who have certain conditions > that render them unusually > vulnerable, though anybody can get it if they want it and are willing > to pay for it (it's pretty > inexpensive). Yes. That's exactly the same down here in Aus. I could not see how they could give newborns a flu vaccine, when the vaccine itself is changed almost every year. My father has a had shot every year for the last 12 years, and I would estimate that he has had the flu maybe twice in those 12 years. Not bad when you consider that the vaccine is basically a 'best guess' at what strain we might see next season. Regards, Sean -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads --Apple-Mail-2-952860685 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/enriched; charset=US-ASCII On Saturday, Apr 12, 2003, at 15:28 Australia/Sydney, Eric Bohlman wrote: <excerpt><fixed>That's not for the influenza virus. It's for a bacterium called haemophilus influenzae, which causes meningitis. See <<<underline><color><param>1999,1999,FFFF</param>www.cdc.gov/health/hib.htm</color></underline>>. In the US, the influenza vaccine is most commonly given to people over 65 or who have certain conditions that render them unusually vulnerable, though anybody can get it if they want it and are willing to pay for it (it's pretty inexpensive). </fixed></excerpt> Yes. That's exactly the same down here in Aus. I could not see how they could give newborns a flu vaccine, when the vaccine itself is changed almost every year. My father has a had shot every year for the last 12 years, and I would estimate that he has had the flu maybe twice in those 12 years. Not bad when you consider that the vaccine is basically a 'best guess' at what strain we might see next season. Regards, Sean --Apple-Mail-2-952860685--