Maybe it is from watching Bowling for Columbine too many times, but whenever I see a huge news story about the horrific potential of (fill-in-the-blank) I am automatically suspect.
When news stories began to surface about SARS during 2002-2003, I began to look closely at the numbers that were being discussed.According to the World Health Organization, the number of deaths reported during the outbreak period between November 2002 and August 2003 totaled almost 1,000 persons.
I admit that any number of deaths from infection is frightening, largely because of the "equal opportunity" nature of the agents.True, poorer conditions lead to greater chance of infection, but such things equalized, a virus such as SARS doesn't take into account whether you are a young father of three kids or a one-hundred-year-old great grandmother in her last few days of life -- it will infect you regardless.
At the time of the outbreak, I was slogging my way through a chapter on WWII in a book chronicling world history in the 20th century and, as a result, I had some numbers fresh in my mind from that era.
Although 1,000 deaths were shocking, I was absolutely stunned to find that we lost 300,000 persons during that war.And that's just our country. The Soviets lost 20 million (military and civilian, estimated average from numerous sources).
According to the 1990 census data, this would be the population equivalent of killing every person in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Diego, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio.
With this in mind, I began to wonder why all the media attention for such a comparatively small number of deaths?Was it just that we are now living in a time in which "premature" death is seen as rare?Perhaps, but if I had just looked a little further into the past, I would have seen why health officials were so concerned.
With only 1,000 deaths from SARS, we got off very easy compared to the last outbreak of an airborne virus, which was the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.And by influenza, I am referring to the same virus that most of us were hoping to avoid this past winter, the yearly flu bug.
After WWI, a new strain emerged that was both virulent and, more importantly, novel to most of humankind's immune system.The result?600,000 deaths in the United States and estimates of up to 40 million worldwide.
Reflecting on the total population of the U.S. at that time makes these numbers all the more daunting.It is interesting to read the methods used to attack the outbreak in our country.Persons were issued masks to wear for protection against airborne transmission, quarantining of infected persons was common and travel was tightly regulated with some trains requiring a certificate of health before allowing passengers to board.Sound familiar to anybody?
Although the WHO and local health authorities used similar methods of disease control in 2003, they were much more successful.Perhaps we responded more quickly (the winding down of the Great War was a large distraction from public health in 1918), maybe our improved communication systems sped the warnings faster, or perhaps we just got lucky.
As news spreads about fears of "bird fever" in Asia and medical journals such as The Lancet use terms such as "massively frightening" to describe its potential impact, maybe we should take it all with a SARS grain of salt, or perhaps we should hope and pray that our good fortune with old methods of public health continues in the future.
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