Job Discussion Forums

[dan]

you'll get hit by an unwieldy taxi or enormous bus, die of food poisoning, get squashed by falling anvils from construction sites, get starred at to death, fall in a bottomless, unmarked hole in the street, electrocute yourself monkeying around with shoddy wiring in your place, crash in one of Air China's finest, slip on snot on the sidewalk and crack your head open beyond repair, get HIV or some other "western" disease, fatally crash on your bicycle or suffer from one of the other numerous, potentially deadly hazards that lurks about in waiting before SARS will kill you

[once again]

I have stated here before and numerous times that we are all aware the comparative risks of many things....but one thing has just occured to me..are any of the posters that write that we should not worry about SARS actually from areas where there has been a serious outbreak..my guess is not.

Believe me that those of us that are in HK with a large number of people who have the condition are aware of all the relative statistics of smoking car crashes etc. and we wish those that are nowhere near any of the real infected areas would just shut up and keep there oppinioins to themselves. When they have had one of their collegues get the condition and watch day by day their neighbourhood become infected then they can tell us not to worry. You may be silly to worry about it if it is not in your town/area neighbourhood etc..but if it comes there then I would like you to keep posting such stuff as "keep it in perspective" and "its all media hype". It was not media hype that infected someone that sat 3 metres away from me and it is not media hype that keeps the infection rate rising. Pollution causes bad things here and people complain and try to do things about it. Car crashes happen here and people try to do things to make the roads safer. Passive smoking causes problems here and we will soon face a ban on smoking in bars and eating places. We try to do things about things that we know will harm us. The same goes for SARS, We know the stats. We know the risks. Just for some of us the risks seem a lot higher than for those that keep preaching that there is no problem.

[dan]

"once again"
ease down. thanks.

[hubei_canuk]

Once Again.
STAND FAST
Hold your ground
Do NOT STAND DOWN!
thank-you
...
I'm in the same boat.
..
DAN: Of that list of things you posted the only thing that i (that is ME not the whole world of statistics and lies)
The only thing that i have a high probablility of risk is ...SARS.
All the other stuff will not happen to me because i take reasonable precaoutions with my life.
..
The other day someone posted that people have more chance of being hit by a turnip truck than getting sars...But which population or RISK group? Five minutes after i read that i read that i read of a Tourist coming down with SARS in Shanxi, with 2 other foreigners dead in China and even more infected, the stats don't seem the same anymore for MY risk group. And these are Time-weighted EXPOSURE stats. Meaning if you are EXPOSED your chances go up to 90 percent and your mortality rate goes up to from 10 to 100 percent depending on your age and state of health. the philipa nurse gave it to her father and he died. That's a mortatlity rate of 100 PPERCENT upon EXPOSURE.
So panic to eliminate exposure is not such a bad idea.
..
PS since my first visit to china in 1987 i have NEVER heard of any foreigner getting killed by a turnip truck but suddenly they are keeling over from SARS. .

[TEECHER]

Hello Dan!!!!! Are you REALLY sitting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin writing to us? Well heck! C'mon over here. Catch a plane and come give us all a visit!

[Hamish]

[Freaky Deaky]

Yeah, sorry about your mate. I know a few people in Hong Kong who just think the whole Sars thing is bollocks. Me too. Let's face it the Cantonese can be quite paranoid. 107 people have died out of 7 million - oh my god, call the cops.

[Roger]

- When I cross a road, I hold up my hands to signal to drivers that I claim the territory for my safe passage! it is a precaution that has saved my life uncounted times!
I have, on the other hand, watched many a Chinese person getting knocked down by motorcycles, minibuses and cars.
Whose fault is this? Yes, they acted spontaneously, without activating their brains!

- If some concrete or a few bricks come loose from a high-rise, drop and maim or kill a passer-by, the site will immediately been closed off (at least in Hong Kong, not sure whether they would always do that in the mainland!). Thus, one victim would serve to save many others' lives!

- I could get electrocuted in any Chinese dwelling-place, but so far this has not happened to ME because I don't trust my ability to handle faulty electrical appliances the way Chinese do! Again, there are plenty of anecdotal references that tell us the Chinese are not learning from their own mistakes! Let's therefore not emulate them!

- It is a cultural thing - we Westerners take a more critical, forward-looking pulse of things in order to judge whether it is safe or not! Ask any Chinese whether riding a bike is dangerous! Or ask your boss whether overstaying your tourist visa while working for him puts anyone in danger!
Yesterday I ate some jelly provided by my school for breakfast. I forgot about it until I began experiencing stomach cramps. My first thought was: SARS! My days are numbered!
Fairly quickly though, I realised it was not that serious. However, how many of my colleagues had the same experience? (Dunno - it's Saturday today, day off). I am a Westerner, and I have heard what symptoms I must watch out for. My CHinese colleagues subscribe to the power of persuasion from their own Gods - the God of Good Luck, Hu Jintao or Karl Marx, but almost never to commonsense!

That's what's so dangerous here! The disease has probably a long history dating back to 1997, when chicken in Hong Kong were found to be suffering from an aviarian virus H5N1 (spelling?). Chickens were mass-slaughtered (and the Buddhists held soul-soothing ceremonies after that!), yet the commonsensical measures such as abolishing wet markets, improving public hygiene have not been impolemented!
Last February, there was a precursor of this current disease, with 300 people being hospitalised, 5 of whom died.
At that time, the public panicked, buying up vinegar to purify their home air and to cleanse their bowels!
I would love to see a little more rational behaviour - but it's not coming from the Chinese side!
A good reason to stay alert!

[once again]

Sorry if my post offended anyone. On re-reading it does come across as aggressive, so my appologies for that. However, maybe I can make my point in a less contentious manner.

We are all aware of the relative risks. They have been pointed out numerous times here. The relative risks don't need pointing out anymore.

But I remember many years ago that my university lecturer stated that he thought the risks of HIV were all media hype. They did not turn out to be media hype. I would like to think that the doctors warning at the earliest times of HIV that it had the potential to be a world wide problem are now not seen as having been hysterical.

At the moment, it seems that there is no real understanding of the risks of SARS. Here is a quote from Peter Openshaw, a respiratory diseases expert at Imperial College London ""Sars has got a lot of ingredients that make it more threatening and worrying than HIV". I hope he turns out to be wrong on this. Is he being "hysterical"? I hope so.

Whilst the real threat of SARS is not known at the moment I consider it very wise to take all reasonable precautions. To label those that do believe that SARS is or could be a major problem as "hysterical" is "mildly insulting". I know of no one in HK that is hysterical about the problem, although as was pointed out the Cantonese do tend to over react to certain health issues, so I am sure that many people are! But those that I know who are taking it seriously are doing so not because of "hysteria" or media hype, but because they see it for what it is. A unknown quantity that has potential to do great harm, especially in places where health care is not as well developed as in major cities.

For the record, I do think that a lot of the media exposure has been sensationalist. Do I let SARS stop me leading my normal life? For the most part no. Do I think it is a something to be concerned about? Yes.

Relative risks can posted about anything. But who are they relative for. Malaria kills over a million people a year. Do I worry about catching Malaria? In HK the risks seem to be very low so I do not worry about it. If I lived in a place with a high incidence of Malaria, would I be concerned about catching it? Yes. Did I worry about SARS before one of my collegues got it? Not really. Since then have I been worried? Not overly, but it is cerainly not just the remote abstract statistical chance that it once was.

[noyb]

Dan should apply for an opening at the CDC.

Begin Sarcasm// Seems to me he is infinitely more qualified than the scientists there that claim we should just skip the "worrying" phase altogether and jump straight to panic. // End Sarcasm

[gerard]

Hello---onceagain is once again making sense. I was in the "this is nutty" camp until a few days ago. However after reading an article in www.guardian.co.uk I am not so sure. Sorry I don't have the link but look at the SARS file... Spanish Flu started slower than this and killed many millions over years. sars may be getting stronger and more deadlier nobody knows.

Don't want to get on the "end is near " bandwagon but in an unhygenic nation like this you can't be too careful I guess. Time will tell.

Now I must go I see I have a PM from Keith B.

[kathleen]

Greetings from Nanjing, where we have no "official" cases but the rumors are a bit frightening. Someone told me today that a train conductor from Nanjing, in his sixties, just died of SARS. Last week, I heard that 2 women from the midtown shopping center, Xinjiekou ,were taken to hospital with high fever.

If anyone can corroborate any of these, please do. The Hopkins center abrubtly closed, 6 weeks ahead of schedule and ordered all students to leave by next week. All of my extra, off-campus gigs have been canceled until further notice, leaving my income down a good Y4000 a month.

Taking all reasonable precautions while trying to carry on with daily life, I am filled with anxiety, not about actually getting sick but by the possibility of not being able to leave or come back next term.

[once again]

According to the South China Morning Post there are no cases. Below is a list of places in China as or April 26th
Anhui..1
Chongquing 1
Fujian 3
Gansu 2
Hebei 18
Henan 9
Hubei 1
Jilin 7
Liaoning 1
Ningxia 5
Shaanxi 2
Shandong 1
Shanghai 2
Tianjin 21
Xinjiang 1
Zhejiang 3
Inner MOngolia 70
Bejing 877
Shanxi 173
Sichuan 9
Hunan 6
Guanxi 16
Guandong 1374

[dan]

sorry folks. I didnt realize how serious some of you are treating this, and by the sounds of it, justifiably so. i was attempting to make light of something that i probably shouldnt, at least not right now. stay vigilant, keen and healthy.

[hubei_canuk]

The Hubei commie "official" infected rate has gone from 1 to 7 and finally to 11 as of today.
Word on the street from several sources is that Wuhan is supposed to be clean (or is that cleansed?) but that they say there is a case (perhaps the source of the outbreak), a doctor in Huangguang? (i have to check the spelling)...it's a small city north of Wuhan, with a lot of foreign teachers.
..
I don't know how the street people know this, it's not coming from Beijing stats but i would guess from channels to the provincial government. I think it's clear the provincial governments run their own show.
...
ok i just read: Martial Law has NOT been declared in Beijing.
It's on the news.
let me repeat: MARTIAL LAW has NOT been declared in Beijing.
...
I think that's something worth thinking about...