FC: Replies to SARS and growth rates

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Back from an Easter vacation and catching up on CFP-week Politech 
submissions... The folks below are right: Initially SARS looked like it 
would grow exponentially but that has not turned out to be the case. A 
graph resembles a straight line. Though with reports in the last 24 hours 
that some crowded, financially-strapped hospitals in China are sending away 
probable SARS patients to go back home in their communities, China may be 
the exception. --Declan]

---

Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:07:34 -0700
Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease
From: Andrew Stone <andrew () stone com>
To: declan () well com

Hi Declan - exponential may be over stating it since although it quadrupled 
in week 1, it only doubled in week 2.

Still scary, but so is lung cancer, AIDS, et al.

On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 08:28  AM, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> 306
> 1,323
> 2,223
-> Andrew Stone * mailto:andrew () stone com
-> Stone Design * http://www.stone.com

---

Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:23:38 -0500
Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease
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Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v551)
From: James Dasher <jdasher () ibiblio org>
To: declan () well com

Small quibble:

On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 10:28  AM, Declan McCullagh wrote:

<snip>
> Note the number of cases yesterday (2,223):
> http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_04_02/en
>
> Compared to a week earlier (1,323):
> http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_26/en
>
> And six days before that (306):
> http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_20/en/
>
> That's an exponential spread.

At best, it's constrained growth.  That's not to downplay the possible 
danger, and it certainly could *enter* a period of exponential - or at 
least geometric - growth; but it has not, yet.

The Far-Eastern Economic Review has an article 
<http://www.feer.com/articles/2003/0304_10/p012region.html> criticizing the 
regime in Beijing for their Communist-secrecy-style handling of the disease 
and information about it, with additional stories available on the Web site.

Enjoy the CFP, and may your inbox not flow to overfilling!

Kind regards,
        James Dasher

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Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 10:40:33 -0600
From: "Orr, Daniel E" <daniel.e.orr () vanderbilt edu>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease


Declan,

Although I have no medical credentials in any way, shape, or form, I note 
the latest statistics for SARS is 78 deaths out of 2,223 cases. This means 
a 3.5% mortality rate. This is lower than many forms of pneumonia, not to 
mention a host of other equally contagious bacteria and viruses. TB springs 
to mind, and of course Brezhnev was killed by "a cold."

I imagine if deaths were controlled for age, i.e. drop the elderly and 
infants for whom many ilnesses prove fatal, the mortality rate would 
decline substantially. This would mean SARS poses even less of a threat to 
healthy adults.

Although the emergence of a new, highly contagious, potentially fatal virus 
is always a cause for concern, I'm not sure SARS isn't as much media hype 
as actual threat.

So I personally believe it's premature to start stockpiling guns and food 
in preparation for the great tribulation. That is, unless you are already.

Cheers,

Dan

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Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:51:06 -0500
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: Steven Cherry <s.cherry () ieee org>
Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease

> Note the number of cases yesterday (2,223):
> http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_04_02/en
>
> Compared to a week earlier (1,323):
> http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_26/en
>
> And six days before that (306):
> http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_20/en/
>
> That's an exponential spread.

Declan, it may be alarming, but it isn't exponential.

First, it turns out to be mixing apples and oranges -- last week W.H.O. 
expanded the date range to include previously unreported cases in China:

306  from 1 Feb 2003 To: 20 Mar 2003
1323 from 1 Feb 2003 To: 26 Mar 2003
2223 from 1 Nov 2002 To: 2 Apr 2003

But in any event, these totals are cummulative, so the week of 26 March saw 
about new 900 cases, about the same as the week prior.
--

--
  Steven Cherry, +1 212-419-7566
  Senior Associate Editor
  IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave,  New York, NY 10016
  <s.cherry () ieee org>  <http://www.spectrum.ieee.org>

---

Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 10:20:47 -0800
To: declan () well com
From: mech () eff org (Stanton McCandlish)
Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-122.8 required=4.0

That's not actually exponential at all, just simply multiplicative, and the 
*rate* of infection would seem to be declining even if the exact headcount 
has risen.  Two weeks ago, it looks like for each person infected, they 
were infecting an average of 4 or even 5 more people each; that's gone down 
as awareness of the disease is spreading, sufferers are being quarantined, 
etc.  At this point it look like the  average infectee is infecting 0-1 new 
people (in reality, it's probably more like for every 10 infectees, 9 go to 
the hospital and infect no one else, while one who just thinks (s)he has a 
cold or something infects 9 or 10 more people in a short time before 
realizing they are really sick.)

Then again, a two-week spread isn't much of a data set...  Let's see what 
the numbers look like in another month, and 6 months after that.

---

Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 22:47:18 -0700
From: "Jerome C. Borden" <jcborden () earthlink net>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: SARS: Some background information on the disease
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20030403102840.01d55810 () mail well com>


Declan McCullagh wrote:

> I've been almost entirely offline this week because of CFP and probably 
> won't catch up on email until Monday. But here's some information on SARS, 
> which we'll cover from time to time on Politech. Basically SARS appears to 
> be as infectious as the common cold -- it spreads by airborne droplets or 
> those left on surfaces -- except it can kill you.
>
> Here's the tech perspective:
> "Disease infects business world"
> http://news.com.com/2009-1022-995238.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed
>
> Note the number of cases yesterday (2,223):
> http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_04_02/en
>
> Compared to a week earlier (1,323):
> http://www.who.int/entity/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_26/en
>
> And six days before that (306):
> http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_03_20/en/
>
> That's an exponential spread. NOW SOME GOOD NEWS!

Plot those points on a piece of graph paper and check the CURVE;
although there are only three points, the Second Derivative appears to be 
Negative.
For fans of the Sigmund Curve, it looks like the maturation area.
Let's hope it is.

Jerome from Layton, UT





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