Originally posted by Rictor
But see, I thought the SARS thing was blown way out of proportion too. How many deaths did it cause? I can't exactly recall, but it was AFAIK under a thousand. And people were walking around the streets of Toronto with masks on their faces.
I thought the AIDS thing was blown way out of proportion too. How many deaths did it cause? I can't exactly recall, but it was AFAIK under a thousand gay men in San Fransisco. And people were f**king around the bedrooms of Toronto with condoms on their penises.
See?
SARS wasn't a problem precisely because it was handled correctly. Yes there were people talking action that really had no major cause to worry about it but the fact is that by reacting as quickly and as drastically to it we stopped it. Hell we might have even killed it forever.
Had people reacted with the same fear to AIDS we might have been able to dead end it too. Probably not as easily because of the long incubation period but it certainly would have reduced the transmission rate.
Originally posted by Rictor
I don't worry about this for the reason I don't worry about a nuclear holocaust. Because, first of all there's nothing I can do about it, secondly because I have been lead to believe that relatively competent men are in charge of the situation (and I'm reffering to scientist not politicians) and lastly because it benefits no one to let disaster happen.
It benifited no one to let mad cows disease run rampant through British dairy herds either. I would have thought that you would be well aware of the fact that governments attempt to do nothing if they think they can get away with it. I'm very glad that people are scared of bird flu. It means that the governments of the world
have to do something about it. If people weren't scared could you see the same British governments who let both BSE and foot and mouth run out of control before reacting doing something as drastic as instituting hugely unpopular quarantines over something as trivial as the flu?
Originally posted by Rictor
If it can be prevented or minimized, it will be prevented or minimized. If it can't, then why worry anyway? It's in no one's interests to see millions die, because those millions likely won't be geographically constrained.
Yes it can be prevented but only by those governments spending time and money on preparedness measures. It's not like the scientists can wave a magic wand and the disease will go away. Scientists have been warning about H5N1 for years and very few people have listened (except in the far east thankfully where it's most important).
This isn't a black and white situation. What will minimize the effects of a pandemic is swift response, good quarantine measures etc. These aren't things that are down to the scientists. These
are down to the politicians.
Do you seriously believe that the other governments of the world would actually listen to scientists
unless they were scared? I certainly can't see the British government doing it and seeing as how Bush virtually ignores his own scientific advisors I can't see the US doing it either.
