SARS Panic... Take it Easy!

By Mark on Friday 25 April 2003 at 12:05

I've been hearing a lot about SARS recently, and what is becoming increasingly annoying is the amount of scaremongering being done by various media agencies.

I acknowledge the need for us to know about these things, but some of the news reports have just gone way too far. A few have gone from notifying us of small number of cases in some countries, to reporting that 'some experts' are predicting a worldwide plague which will kill millions.

Now, maybe they're right. I certainly don't know. But so far, according to the BBCi web site, there have been 276 known deaths from the disease (most of which occurred in China, the area most affected by SARS), and the WHO site estimates the number of known cases at 3488.

This sounds a lot, until you realise that even 3 years ago, China alone had a population of 1.3 billion people. The China Today site tells us that more than 90,000 people die there each year from road accidents! Suddenly the SARS figures don't sound quite as frightening, do they?

I'm not saying we should ignore this potentially serious outbreak; my point is that maybe it's a little early to be predicting the end of humanity (as some people seem to think is necessary). Please, let people do their jobs and stop scaring everyone.

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