SARS in Toronto!

rnrncan · Apr 24, 2003

right on fergus51

fergus51 · Apr 24, 2003

By the way, the WHO advisory doesn't have any practical application. Canadians are still allowed to leave Toronto and travel at will and travellers are allowed to come here. WHO just gave a suggestion and it contained the same information that passengers going through Pearson have been getting for some time: what the symptoms of SARS are, who is at risk and that those who show symptoms should not travel. It won't protect any country from anything because they have no authority to control any traveller. That responsibility lays with each country's government, and when the CDC says it's unwarranted I doubt the US will be stopping its citizens from going to TO and coming home.

Scotty · Apr 24, 2003

Travel can spread SARS.

That is how it moved from China to Hong Kong and so on. It has also probably been spread from Toronto to the Philipines and the USA. The vast majority of travellers in the world today are not carrying SARS but a few of them may be. The majority of travellers won't contract SARS but a few unlucky ones might.

Sometimes SARS transmits easily (the people who caught it in the hotel in Hong Kong despite absolutely minimal contact with the index case) and sometimes it doesn't.

I love Toronto and if I had a ticket to visit right now I think I'd still come. My most realistic fears would be getting mugged for being a tourist, or perhaps getting stuck in quarantine with people who do have SARS when I came home, if the epidemic and the panic worsen. [The British fee paying schools sent a lot of children from Hong Kong etc into quarantine together when they returned to the UK after their holidays, to protect the British children. This wasn't the British Government, it was the organisation that supposedly looks after the welfare of these children when they are in the UK. What if one of those children had been a so called super spreader and had transmitted The SARS virus(es) to the healthy children who were quarantined along with him or her? Then again it wouldn't be very nice for a child in a foreign country to spend ten days in solitary confinement.]

I honestly don't know if the WHO are right to issue travel advisories or not. Time will tell. Maybe they should just continue to issue the facts and let people make up their own minds. But we know only too well that some people will knowingly put others at risk.

Will a travel advisory stop the spread of SARS? SARS may be with us for good and we can't close our borders for ever or we'll have an economic disaster.

There are so many dilemmas.

Anyway, best wishes to you all. I really appreciate your stories and views. I'm sorry some of you are actually dealing with this nightmare.

RN4ev'r · Apr 24, 2003

Can someone refresh my tired brain? :confused:

Did the nurse that travelled to the Phillipines have symptoms before she left? Same question for the children in Australia? I do remember it was around this time that one of the doctors involved with looking at the virus went to Paris and then quarantined himself there in an apartment. If the above happened before sars became the problem it is, and there has only been the doctor that travelled to the US since, then isn't the WHO a little late to be showing their concern about coming to Toronto?

Scotty · Apr 25, 2003

RN4ev'r, maybe no-one knows whether the nursing assitant who travelled to the Phillipines had symptoms or not, but her linked SARS contact WAS in Toronto. And yes, I agree with you the WHO may be a bit too late with their concern about spread of SARS from Toronto.

[My husband is grabbing the computer mouse here (he is a journalist who worked in public relations for a state health authority) and he wants to have his say. He wants to say it is ridiculous to pick on Canada in the face of a pandemic which, by definition, is already beyond national boundaries. That's his view.]

I have a question. Do people think that the infection control advice given by the WHO on their website on 24th April is adequate?

Scotty · Apr 25, 2003

RN4ev'r, maybe no-one knows whether the nursing assitant who travelled to the Phillipines had symptoms or not, but her linked SARS contact WAS in Toronto. And yes, I agree with you the WHO may be a bit too late with their concern about spread of SARS from Toronto.

[My husband is grabbing the computer mouse here (he is a journalist who worked in public relations for a state health authority) and he wants to have his say. He wants to say it is ridiculous to pick on Canada in the face of a pandemic which, by definition, is already beyond national boundaries. That's his view.]

I have a question. Do people think that the infection control advice given by the WHO on their website on 24th April is adequate?

toronto rn · Apr 25, 2003

SARS is defined by exemption since there is no definative test for it. The woman who died in the Philipines had been ruled out for SARS initially, however the Canadian Gov't, acting cautiously ruled her in so as not to allow any case to slip through the cracks. 50 plus healthcare workers and family contacts were quarantined since 11 days ago---no further cases have arised from those quarantined. Same with australia, the three children were quarantined because they couldn't rule out SARS--again no further spread. Reviewing the symptoms-headache cough fever achiness, fatigue-many other illnesses including the common cold have the same symptoms but because SARS has no definative test everyone is included until they recover or the illness progresses with x-ray changes, and shortness of breath. No one can say with any certainty that the cases in the Philipines and Austrailia were SARS or just a cold/other virus. I think it is irresponsible of the WHO to use these cases as a basis for the travel alert- accusing Toronto of exporting the illness when it was never confirmed as SARS. The ramifications of that alert will harm Toronto indefinately, especially since the community transmission of the virus has been contained.

toronto rn · Apr 25, 2003

SARS is defined by exemption since there is no definative test for it. The woman who died in the Philipines had been ruled out for SARS initially, however the Canadian Gov't, acting cautiously ruled her in so as not to allow any case to slip through the cracks. 50 plus healthcare workers and family contacts were quarantined since 11 days ago---no further cases have arised from those quarantined. Same with australia, the three children were quarantined because they couldn't rule out SARS--again no further spread. Reviewing the symptoms-headache cough fever achiness, fatigue-many other illnesses including the common cold have the same symptoms but because SARS has no definative test everyone is included until they recover or the illness progresses with x-ray changes, and shortness of breath. No one can say with any certainty that the cases in the Philipines and Austrailia were SARS or just a cold/other virus. I think it is irresponsible of the WHO to use these cases as a basis for the travel alert- accusing Toronto of exporting the illness when it was never confirmed as SARS. The ramifications of that alert will harm Toronto indefinately, especially since the community transmission of the virus has been contained.

sixes · Apr 25, 2003

Good morning. TorontoRN thank you for posting. I am happy to hear from someone actually working with the SARS clients. Please keep us well informed. Unfortunately the only paper I can find is the SUN and because I am not from the area besides this board and the CDC it is my only source of info. Do you recommend that I stop posting the links to the Sun?

On the news last night they say there has been no new cases in the last 17 days in the community. Are there new cases arising in the Hopitals?

Also there was a bus load of university students that were turned back from the states they were not allowed to play soccer as the university they were going to feared the spread of SARS. I believe they were going to get scolarships. Will they not be allowed to go to the states to get their education?

Until I hear from you I will continue to post the links to the SUN. Don't worry I won't be offended if you advise me not to post these links! I don't want to help in the spread of the hysteria aver SARS

My hats go off to all who are working with SARS. Keep up the good work and my God bless you all

sixes · Apr 25, 2003