WHO and SARS 4/15

Nurses General Nursing

Published

A Dr. David Haymen the Executive Director of Cluster Illnesses for WHO was interview live on TV last evening. He stated over and over again that it will be 3 to 4 weeks until they "have a clear picture of what is going on". OK, he did NOT say "we will have the disease under control in 3 to 4 weeks". He also said that even though the Chinese version of the Health Department has begun to give full co-operation, other levels of goverment have not got the message. This is how I took that. It is a totalitarian society, even though the big bosses see the need to tell the truth all the little people down the line can't believe they won't be punished for saying what is really going on. He was asked point blank "why is Toronto having such an bad outbreak". His answer was that "Toronto has a large Chinese population". Well the reporters shot that down PDQ. There are large cities with large Chinese populations all over US and Canada and even though they have had small number of cases there has not been anything like outbreak like in Toronto. Dr. Haymen responded to that by saying the first case showed up in Toronto before the warnings were up so it got out of hand. The reporters were not satisfied with that anymore than I am. In that case there still should have been similar outbreaks in San Fransisco, NY and Vancover. Something does not add up here. The good doctor agreed with the reporters that something does not add up here. That is why all these theories about super infectors and cockroach vectors are coming out. Last but not least he would not even venture a guess about a vaccine.

moving this back up by posting, pretty good link here

I was told last week by the emergency room doctors in one of our city's two largest hospitals that "we're too damned busy to triage for SARS" "we get a couple of respiratory patients every 10 to 20 minutes, there's no way we could be doing all that" (nobody was wearing masks in ER, though ER personnel were coughing and sneezing.)

The same Dr. said that if someone called ahead and said they suspected they had SARS and had visited Asia, THEN they would take special precautions with THAT patient.

I just give the US a few weeks before we become in the same boat as Toronto and Singapore.

In Toronto, EVERYONE who enters a hospital is screened and has to wear a mask, and it doesn't matter why they came to the hospital. Laboring women are even masked at the door and not allowed to take it off unless they are in their room.

Oramar, from what I understood, the reason things got so bad in Toronto is because we didn't place the original cases (a woman and her son and daughter) in isolation when they first came in. So, that caused the original outbreaks at Scarborough Grace among patients and health care workers and started the whole cascade. They spread it on to family members and so on. Add that to the fact that some people did not obey the quarantine they were placed under and you got a problem! We just reacted to slowly.

HEY FOLKS THE AUSTRALIANS HAVE LOCKED THEIR HOSPITAL DOORS TO PERSONS FROM SARS AFFECTED NATIONS UNLESS IT IS AN EMERGENCY, AND AS OF TODAY THAT MEANS AMERICAN TOURISTS!!!!!

Aussies Close Hosp to Sars exposed

http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6298462%255E421,00.html

WHO list of SARS affected nations

http://www.who.int/csr/sarsareas/2003_04_16/en/

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