THREAD UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
I intend to add further links as I come across them

See also links post 4 mbcat
Keep checking South China Morning Post & SoSick & QuamNet for updates.



World health organisation for daily update


bbc mutation of cold virus





ok Fewer have died so far than die in France in a week on the roads, and we do not stop going to France for a motoring holiday, however there is something very alarming about a bug one cannot see and not know if one has caught for some 10 days (OK better than AIDS were it can be 6 months plus).

There have already been significant Global cancellation of conferences and travel. WHO is worried may now be endemic in China (i.e. got away into the population at large) and hence it may not be possible to contain it. HSBC are downgrading Far East GDP already as a result.

This could be a bigger problem for the world economy (imo) than either the bursting of the bubble, BenLardin, or even the 21 day war.

Any thoughts -

SARS Thread

Is that a slur on Italian restaurants? It must be :-)

Very negative article in this week's Economist - However need to be a subscriber to read on line - worthwhile imo in borrowing a copy - On page 51 of the international edition.

Headline - A plague on all our businesses. Basically detailing a range of downgrades across the whole of SouthEast Asia. Stephen roach of Morgan Stanley quoted as saying that SARS will cut growth inAsia (excludign Japan) from 5% to 4.5% in 2003.

Kayak
No. I was in a friend's Italian restaurant in West End and the owner was talking about taking his daughter and some others to Soho and Chinatown for a meal after he closed. Several of the peolle were not keen to go to Chinese area because of SARS,

I see the BBC are now reporting that China's figures are a little suspect and it may now be pandemic.

Mike.

Mayor and Health Minister in Beijing sacked for covering up scale of problem.

In Beijing, shops, restaurants and hotels are empty and locals in Hong Kong say their city is a ghost town, according to the BBC's Holly Williams in the Chinese capital.
The pneumonia-like disease has now spread to four previously unaffected provinces in China, but most of the new cases are in Beijing.
Classes have also been suspended at several universities in the capital, including China Northern Jiaotong University where 118 people are under observation, AFP reported.
The latest victims in Hong Kong - two women and four men - were aged between 48 and 79 and all had a history of chronic illness, a statement from the health department said.

So far, 1,402 cases of the illness have been recorded there.

In Singapore, the authorities have placed 2,400 workers in quarantine and closed a large vegetable market for 10 days after a man working there was diagnosed with Sars.

SARS is now a problem in 25 countries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2966117.stm

Sars virus 'mutating rapidly'

The virus thought to cause Sars is constantly changing form, say scientists - which will make developing a vaccine difficult.
The Beijing Genomics Institute reported that the virus is "expected to mutate very fast and very easily".

Other experts have warned that, once established, it could be particularly hard to stop the Sars virus causing problems.

Sars appears to be caused by a new strain of a coronavirus which may have "jumped" from animals to humans in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

seems very odd to me that no-one has yet linked this to saddam hussein....sounds very much like a candidate for some kind of germ warfare.

ps if some of the links mention that , my apologies but my 200mHz pc and slow dial up link restrict me to reading posts only

Lots of experts jumping on the bandwaggon - However imo they may be right. It would appear from thepanic news coming out of China that the virus may have spread away from the original location and is staarting to spread out of control. If it becomes endemic as I originally worried it could then the outlook for theworld economy could be very poor - Except of course for Drug and Healthcare coys. Latest link to Full BBC News story below:-



Two British experts said on Thursday that they felt Sars was potentially more dangerous than HIV - as it was much easier to catch.

Professor Peter Openshaw, from Imperial College London, told the BBC: "It's difficult to know how bad it's going to be.

"It's got a lot of ingredients that make it more threatening and worrying than HIV."

Disease spread

Dr Patrick Dixon, who predicts global trends, said that millions would be affected if the disease continued to spread at the same rate.

He said if the disease became established in developing countries, the death toll would be much higher.

A word of caution about healthcare companies. If we reach a point where SARS begins to overwhelm hospitals, most non-essential/non-life-threatening procedures and treatments may well be cancelled. Certain health companies may take a big hit because demand for their products will probably drop substantially, as the healthcare system will focus the resources it has on emergency care.

Even if the healthcare sector takes an upturn in the market, I expect business for several major companies will deteriorate rapidly if SARS becomes endemic.

It has only a 4% death rate and that is mainly among at risk patients. We may see a cull of the older section of our population. Now, am I in the older section or not?

Haystack
judging from the pubs round here, if you are older than 25....YES :o(

Haystack

Interesting point. I wonder what the opposite of baby boom is? Wrinkly rout?

Perhaps it is nature's way of telling us that our population is getting too old. Maybe the 'baby boomers' will become excess to requirements - not wanted on voyage group. Now that we don't have wars that remove a section of the population, mother nature does it for us. I saw an item today that said that 3,000 children a day die from Malaria. It puts our fears over SARS into perspective.

Gausie,

"wrinkly rout" LOL!

Standard Chartered Bank must surely be a short now, and I wonder which banks have exposure to cathay Pacific, and the HK property sector?

WHO have now accepted that the death rate is around 10% and not the 4% they were promoting earlier.

However, SARS appears to share another charecteristic with HIV (according to Imperial College) in that it is not particularly easily transmitted. So it is easily contained provided you quarantine those who may have been in contact with it.

I think the panic is over-blown, but firm action needs to be taken to contain it.

No word of panic from San Francisco where one third of the population is ethnic Chinese. One of my staff has an adopted Chinese daughter -- should I ban her from the office ;-)

MM

Do you need to ask?

Mighty Micro would be a more suitable candidate bearing in mind all the miles of international air travel he clocks up. It's these jet setters that are bringing doom on the world. It's a punishment from God. If he had meant us to fly then we would have given us wings etc. etc.

Haystack: I'm flying to Edinburgh on Tuesday -- should I change my travel plans?

MM

Lots of Chinese restaurants in Edinburgh. Why would anyone want to go north of Hendon anyway? It's a foreign country up there you know.