I can’t possibly hope to keep up with the guys at:

http://www.squeak.org/us/ted/sars-graph.html
http://www.sars-spread.com/
http://www.sarswatch.org/
http://www.real-humanity.com/sars.htm

Using those four sites and their links, you can get SARS updates virtually 24 hours a day.

Ah, that reminds me, Google has a news tool at news.google.com that not only lists the latest headlines from thousands of sources world-wide – you can also filter on it. Try it, go there and filter on SARS.

Now, how’s this for interesting? Ted from squeak.org has calculated the following:

The number of reported cases of SARS in the world is doubling every 16 days using the data available on April 17, 2003. There will be 100,000 cases on about July 2, 2003. A million cases will be reached on about August 25, 2003, and ten million on about October 17, 2003. The number of reported worldwide deaths due to SARS will double every 12 days. The number will be 100,000 on about August 7, 2003. A million deaths will be reached on about September 16, 2003, and ten million on about October 27, 2003.

Even more interesting is this excerpt from real-humanity.com:

The SARS death rate will continue to rise and will likely eventually fall between 6.4% and 9% and this doesn’t include the probable lack of respirators as hospitals become overloaded. This death rate increase is solely a function of mathematics. The problem is that cases are reported when the patient presents with symptoms, but the patient does not die straight away. It is likely from all reports that those patients that will die, do so between one and three weeks after they go to hospital. Which means that the death rate should not be calculated by dividing the number dead by the number of cases now, but by dividing the number dead by the number of cases one or two weeks ago. If the time is one week on average then the rate should be taken as 6.4% and if it is two weeks, then the death rate is 9%. Of course, if the average time from being classified as a SARS patient till death is longer than two weeks, then the fatality rates get even higher.

Ok, I am worried about SARS, but if these guys are right – we may be confronting the next Spanish Flu or Black Death.

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