LucyHo

Just saw on new the Mayor's response. Interested in what everyone thinks?

JMM

I think WHO has over-reacted but at least now some of our local politicians are actually waking up to the fact that maybe they should be doing more to help our Public Health people. So far all cases of SARS have been attributed to VERY close contact with SARS patients. Health care professionals doing intubations seem particularly at risk (This is NOT suprising. Intubation can be a messy procedure. Apparently saliva from SARS patients has a high concentration of virus). In other words unless you intend to come to Toronto and intubate SARS patients or live in close contact with them for a while, you are NOT at risk. Also Toronto (unlike China) has been guilty of honesty. Our public health officials report ALL cases of SUSPECTED SARS (some of which have turned out not to be SARS). And all deaths of SARS patients are attributed to SARS. ALL of those patients who died had other serious illnesses or were elderly. However I doubt that facts and common sense are much help against hysteria.

duke6979

I really don't know who you or that bozo of a mayor in Toronto think you are to question the WHO and possibly Atlanta based CDC.I have advised some senior citizen family members to postpone their trip to Toronto just as you would probably not be planning a vaction in Hong Kong right now!!

davidess

Well, JMM and duke, we're off to Toronto this morning (we live 70 miles east) to run a few errands and to have lunch in our favorite little Italian trattoria. Won't be using public transport or going to the movies, though. Everybody has their own version of common sense, I guess. Nobody's running scared here, but not sure that your level of insouciance, ehile obviously informed, is entirely warranted either, JMM. WHO's concerns, as I read them, are as to the potential of a spread beyond Toronto and as to the unknown nature generally and the degree of communicability in particular of SARS. I suppose there might be some justification for the warning if a superabundance of caution can be defined as such; I do wonder, however, whether WHO so much as touched down in Toronto before issuing their advisory--friends of mine in Shanghai who are in a position to know tell me that WHO officials have spent the last four days in Shanghai assessing the situation. Maybe our openness (naivete?) rendered a pre-advisory visit nugatory, no?

DES

JMM

I lied. One last post on the subject. I HIGHLY recommend the CDC Sars website.
Lots of common sense information and advice from people who actually know what they are talking about. Ignore posters here (myself included) and check this site.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/index.htm

goldwynn

Talk about getting carried away......a few business people from Edmonton were refused admittance into a meeting in Dublin, Ireland (CBC Radio this evening). Seems the Irish thought it was too close to Toronto.

That`s 2712 Km (1685 miles) between the two. Similar to Athens, Greece and Dublin.

JohnK

Hello everyone,
The United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta is NOT advising against travel to Toronto. They have just advised that people take proper precautions like hand washing, avoiding healthcare facilities etc. The World Health Organization, on the other hand, is recommending not traveling to Toronto. I am a New Yorker who had a trip to Toronto planned for May 9th. Unfortunately, my company, which is a global organization, is going by the WHO standards and I have to cancel my trip because if I do go I will not be allowed to return to my office for 7 days after my return to New York. I hope it all gets resolved soon or Toronto is going to have a disasterous hit to its tourism industry as people like me are prevented from going to Toronto. I hope to see you Torontonians soon!

TravelMaster

From Thursday's National Post - As of yesterday, 16 people in the greater Toronto area -- one for every 292,681 residents -- had died from the virus.

Mathematically speaking, a person is much more likely to die in a flood (one in 237,132), be murdered (one in 50,353), or accidentally strangle themselves in bed (one in 10,779).

"The safest way to travel is in a plane," said Emile Therien, the president of the Canada Safety Council. "But probably your chances of dying in a plane crash coming to Toronto are much greater than your chances of acquiring SARS."

For the record, the odds of dying in a plane crash this year are approximately one in 380,000.

Meesthare

There does seem to be some kind of problem in terms of WHO's travel advisory. Health Canada says that WHO based their conclusion on incorrect, i.e. outdated, information. The question that's being asked now is who gave them that information. Toronto Public Health says that Health Canada dropped the ball; Health Canada says that they gave accurate information which was wrongly interpreted by WHO. Apparently there was some sort of written dialogue between WHO and Health Canada, during the course of which WHO acknowledged having made a mistake and over-rated the danger of travelling to Toronto. However, they still issued the warning. It's all confusing, and somewhat alarming in the sense that if it was all just some big mistake, why haven't they lifted the advisory? However, the CDC is providing good information, the incidence of new cases is down significantly, and life is going on here in a pretty ordinary way. I work in a health care facility and so far we have had zero cases at our hospital. We have to draw a line between sensible caution on one side and panic on the other, and perhaps that's not so easy given all the conflicting stuff in the press. The Mayor, unfortunately, seems to be the least informed of all; I'd follow JMM's advice and consult the CDC website. As for the WHO - hey, what does a rock group know about disease prevention, anyway?

waltd

Well, this topic has gotten interesting! If the affected countries (now including the US) spend as much energy as went into these responses, we'll have that bad old virus whipped in no time!!
I agree with those who advocate keeping travel plans for Toronto. We are not talking the Bubonic Plague here. Toronto has millions of people who go about their daily lives. Virtually everyone (a little more than 100) who have contracted the virus are health-care workers or a handful who had very close contact. Statistically, one stands a FAR greater chance of having his pocket picked than contracting this virus.
But for those who are more realistic, there are great bargains to be had by going. The CDC is a pretty conservative agency and it doesn't agree with the WHO. The bottom line is that if you're one to fret over such things, by all means don't travel. You'd just be worried anyway and wouldn't have a good time.

duke6979

Davidess......ess???? What does "ehile" mean or is this a spelling error?

duke6979

30 years ago there were 12 confirmed cases of Aids worldwide
29 years ago there were 30 cases confirmed
Now 30 million dead!

SusanInToronto

Duke, you have really outdone yourself with that last post. Talk about hysteria.

JMM

From the CDC wesite some stats:
Annual Deaths in USA due to:
AIDS: 14,478
Pneumonia: 63,548
Cancer: 553,251
Heart Disease: 710,750
West Nile Virus: about 200

icithecat

It is amazing what one can find by simply searching.

dukeIQ.001 has posted on 44 threads.

He/she is American because to visit Cuba she/he comented that to get to Cuba, one has to fly out of Canada on airtransat.

He/she wants to go to Spain this year.

She/he claims to have been to Ireland.

He/she trashes any destination in Canada including PEI.

Tis takes less time to search a person's history than to type.

LucyHo

JMM, those figues are quite amazing:

AIDS: 14,478
Pneumonia: 63,548
Cancer: 553,251
Heart Disease: 710,750
West Nile Virus: about 200

Pneumonia 63,548 and Aids 14,478. How many people would ever have guessed that 4 times as many people die from Pneumonia than die from Aids. I think everyone would be shocked at that.

Another statistic I saw yesterday. In the past 2 months about 200 million people have travelled by air. 2 have contracted SARS caught from someone else on the plane!

I made my original post wondering what people thought. I am based in Singapore where we have lost 70% of our turism business. After the Bali bombing travel warnings were issued including islands in Thailand such as Phuket who then took a devastating blow to their toursim which is their No.1 earner. Business collapsed, people lost their jobs. People went bankrupt. Yet there was not a single incident nor was any incident even uncovered nor thwarted.
Phuket is as far from Bali and probably Vancouver is from Toronto. All that could be said was it was a similar type of holiday place. Like Vancouver could be compared with Toronto as cities. Whilst everyone eas canceling their trips to Asia the Kenya bombing occured. There were no warnings for that.

Yesterday I saw someone driving a car on their own, wearing a face mask ( yes, it was his own car, he is a neighbour ).

People are frightened and that is natural, but it seems that the hysteria is because these images are simply scary. The word 'perspective' is used by so many and I have to agree. Yes, it is a serious concern. I have full sympathy for all the medical workers and people of Toronto doing their best, we are in the same boat.

I certainly needs the co-operation of governments and the medical people, the WHO has a big task. But why people are worried to go to say Thailand or Malaysia because of Hong Kong/China and I admit, ourselves is saying that people should not go to Florida or Alaska because of the Toronto situation.

caribtraveler

JMM---
You CAN'T compare SARS death rates to other diseases/illnesses death rates.
You're giving out annual death rates, and SARS hasn't been around for a year!!Why don't you wait till SARS has been around for a year..then that would be a fair comparison.

caribtraveler

JMM: May I add...
Since you seem to be good on research.
Give me the number of people who got AIDS in the last 6 months (The first case of SARS was about 6 months ago, in November last year) and out of those people who got AIDS, how many died.
Do the same with the other diseases you named...then you may compare with SARS.

And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting hysteria. I'm just suggesting you make fair comparisons.

conquistador

Susan in Toronto! I do not think this is hysteria. People knew how to avoid aids. I am not sure yet that we know how to avoid SARS and still carry out our normal business. Duke has a POV ..do you?

duke6979

How are things in Victoria Ms.icithecat?