how SARS affected some real live people

Leslie

Leslie

Communistrator
Staff member
For the past four months, Toronto has been in the grips of a new disease that terrified the world, brought some of Canada's biggest hospitals to a virtual standstill and siphoned billions from the once burgeoning hospitality and movie-making businesses. But the tale of Toronto's battle against SARS isn't only about its macro-level impact.
It's really a tapestry of stories, most of which never came to the public eye because travel advisories or hospital closings, quarantine orders or surging case numbers bumped them from the nation's news agenda.
Many are tragic, some ironic. Some are silly, others perplexing. Some are tales of heroism and sacrifice, others of unspeakable loss. One cannot fully appreciate the impact of SARS without examining the fine detail.
Here is a small sampling of those stories:
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At about 9 p.m. on Thursday, May 22, a clutch of ashen-faced public health officials filed into a small room in the headquarters of Toronto Public Health for a hastily called news conference. Their grim message: SARS was back.
Four cases - the minuscule tip of the eventual iceberg - had been found at a rehabilitation hospital in the north end. The source of infection was unclear, they said, though there was a possibility the cluster had been triggered by an imported case.
That was wishful thinking, hinged on an astonishing coincidence.
One of the first four cases was a woman, 66, who had travelled in April to Hong Kong and China - areas where SARS infections were also raging out of control. Fearful that she might have been exposed to SARS, the woman quarantined herself at home for 12 days following her return.
Public health didn't ask her to. She simply wanted to make sure she posed no risk to others.
After her self-imposed quarantine was over, the woman went to visit her son, a patient at St. John's Hospital. And there she became infected with the virus she'd managed to evade in two of the world's hottest SARS hot zones.
"It's truly one of the great ironies," says Dr. James Young, Ontario's commissioner of public security. "Because for days everybody thought: 'Oh, well, she must have brought it back.' Then it turned out she didn't."
On June 7, the woman became the 34th person in Ontario to die from SARS.
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more stories like this here

I find it nice and helpful to be reminded sometimes that things like this are affecting real people. :)
 
a13antichrist said:
You find it nice and helpful to be reminded sometimes that things like this are killing real people? :eek6:
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Yes I do. Living around it day after day, being inconvenienced by it, hearing about it hour after hour for months on end on the tv and news and in conversation is desensitizing...it's nice, for me anyway, to hear some of the real stories behind it all.
 
a13antichrist said:
You're happy that real people are actually dying from it, rather than just endless tallies of nobodies?
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no, but I'm happy that my soul was reminded to care.
 
So you'd rather hear 34 stories about how each person contracted the virus and how long they were about to hold on, so that you can mourn each one individually? :) There were 200 or so that died in China you know, you might be grieving for quite some time.. :p
 
On the other hand, why do you need to be reminded to care? Isn't hearing of 34 pointless, tragic deaths enough to incite a bit of compassion? :p
 
Hey, Thats what I love about you. :hug:


Now for the record, I understand exaclty what you mean Les, it's not that you enjoy reading about people dying, it's just so easy to think about SARS and not the people that really have it.
 
no problem, I needed the additional you're a horrible awful uncaring insensitive callous wench guilt :headbang:
 
horrible awful uncaring insensitive callous wench
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As Nalani would say, "How's that workin' for ya?" :D

Seriously, I'm probably way too callous, but my wife is way too empathetic so maybe we balance each other out.
 
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