Aussies told to not go to China at all....... should Yao be there???

Wow. This is really getting bad.
Yao should be in Texas.

Or he could train in Australia for awhile, bring his girlfriend.
You could put them up and the Rocks could send some people there. That's the ticket!

On a serious note, is Australia restricting travel from places like China and Hong Kong, where SARS is really getting hard to contain? Or is what your university doing unusual. I wish Yao would come back to the States. If things get closer to normal in his country, he could always return and play for the National Team. I don't think he needs much in the way of training with them, all things considered. A couple of weeks with the team is all that is needed, imo.

 

i was thinking the same thing myself. yao should not be there, but at least he is in shanghai rather than beijing where the worst of the outbreak appears to be.

 

i'm curious what is the mortality rate of this disease compared to the flu....SARS is so overhyped.

 

Unfortunately the WHO just put Shanghi on the official list of "do not visit cities" due to sars.

However, Yao should be fine. I am sure there are people watching him like a hawk to make sure that he ok.

 

It appears that WHO should replace the United Nations. People actually believes and obeys to WHO.

 

SARS has killed more than 2000 people in China -- still think it's overhyped?

 

According to WHO official website:

http://www.who.int/csr/sarsarchive/2003_04_30/en/

China has, to date, total 3460 cases and 166 death, not 2000.

The mortality rate is about 3%.

Also Shanghai has not yet on the travel banning list by WHO according to its official website.

 

This is the update for affected area on 04/30/03

http://www.who.int/csr/sarsareas/2003_04_30/en/

I recommend people who are interested in the situation to visit WHO official website.
They are updating the situation almost everyday.

 

you idiot. not over 2000, but fewer than 200.
Yes, it is overhyped. Fatality rate for SARS is about 6%-8%, compared with almost 100% for AIDS.
Is is overhyped, consiering the flu early last century killed 20 million people wordwide.
The media tend to overhype everything now.

 

Exactly, just like the west nile virus.

 

Still don't see Shanghai.

Those of you who said Shanghai was on the list, maybe u mistaken it for Shanxi?

Anyways 159 death out of a populaton of 1.3 billion isn't really that high. There really is a greater chance of hitting by car in the U.S. Look below to prove this hypothesis.


From caraccidents.com estimated 41,000 ppl die/ year due to car accidents. Out of a population of 280,000,000 (from cia.gov world fact book) that's .0014% of the population per year. Divide that by 356 days/ year that's .0000004% chance you are going to die from car accidents at any given day day.

Now lets assume SARs spread through China for about a month,
159 in a country of 1.3 billion, that's .000000122% per month. divide that number by 30 days/ month we get .000000004% chance you are gonna die in China due to SARS on any give day. In reality SARS has been around a tad longer than a month so we can assume the percantage to be even lower.

So we see that you are 100 times more likely to die from car accidents in the US than to die from SARS in China. Class is now dismissed.

In reality I would worried a lot more about being mugged, ripped off, coned in China than from SARS, just my 2 cents.

 

Yup that's what I did. My bad, sorry for the confusion.

The problem is that you are forgetting the number of people infected and the rate of infection. 159 out of 1.3 billion is extremely low, but remember that is out of only 3460 confirmed cases. As more people get infected, not only with the death rate increase, but the faster SARS will likely to spread.


From an article in Time magazine:
"But if SARS continues to spread, its numbers could skyrocket. Its overall death rate of about 6% is far lower than that of AIDS, Ebola or malaria, but if enough people catch the illness, even a low rate could cause a catastrophe. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19 had a death rate of less than 3%, but so many people became infected that it killed more than 20 million people in just 18 months."

That being said, SARS is currently overhyped. But when it comes to things like diseases, it's better to overhype and make people aware than to try and control it after it's too late.

 

Like most diseases, SARS seems to be combatable with early detection and treatment, as well as quarantine of the infected. With the awareness it's already gotten, people are a lot more aware and are probably taking notice of the symptoms faster and getting treatment faster. In my opionion the cases of SARS will only continue to go down instead of up. I guess we need another month or 2 to tell, but I think it's gonna pass pretty soon. Still the percentage that Yao will EVEN get INFECTED is .00000008%, still about 1/5 as likely as to DIE in the U.S. from car accidents. And I'm sure he'll get treatment at the earliest sign of infection.

 

Hey you guys:

http://sports.tom.com/Archive/1019/1042/2003/5/1-74432.html

This article says that Yao had wanted to go to visit SARS workers in Shanghai but the Shanghai City Sports Organization said "absolutely not." It also said that before Yao returned to Shanghai, the Chinese Sports Organization had ordered that any type of public appearances by Yao would need approval from them. He needs to eat clean foods, go to public places as little as possible - everything needs to be done to keep his physical well-being in mind.

The Shanghai City Sports Organization said that Yao is essentially a "Chinese Treasure" and "needs to go to team training soon, nothing can go wrong during the next 20 days."

 

this confirms it. YAO's a DUMBA$$. visiting SARS workers on purpose.

 

spiral, if you have a problem with Yao, just jump over to Sun's board. Calling other people names shows your level of maturity.

This is original report:

"Õ⼸Ì죬С¾ÞÈËÒ¦Ã÷¿´Á˵çÊÓÉÏÓйء°·Çµä¡±ÐÂÎź󣬶¯ÁËÏëȥοÎÊ¡°·Çµä¡±Ò½»¤ÈËÔ±µÄÄîÍ·¡£ÕâÊǸöºÃÖ÷Ò⣬¿Éϧ£¬Ò²ÊÇÒ»¸ö²»¿ÉÄÜʵÏÖµÄÏë·¨¡£"

Translated verbatim:

During the past few days, after Yao watched news of SARS on TV, he wanted to comfort those medical workers. This is a good idea but unfortunately unrealistic.

To me this only shows Yao's a person with compassion.

To amysiu: Please do not post half story where the meaning gets lost so completely and causes misunderstanding.

 

Oops, sorry This taught me to be more careful with my translations from now on.... but my main reason for posting was to let everyone know that the Chinese government sports organizations take Yao's wellbeing very seriously and I'm sure are taking care of him well so Yao fans, don't worry....

 

Comparing SARS with AIDS is incorrect, because SARS is much more easily transmitted. You don't get AIDS by shaking hand with an AIDS patient. But you can get SARS by simply being in the same room with an infected person.

Comparing SARS with ordinary flu is also incorrect, because SARS's mortality rate is much higher. It's true that flu killed more people. That's because almost everybody gets flu at least once each year. But the chances of dying from flu is extremely small. Compare that with even a very conservative 3% mortality rate for SARS, you'll see why people are so scared.

That said, it is a bit overhyped by the media, and a lot of the fear is unfounded. But the policies for containing the virus by restricting traveling are necessary.



And amysiu, we are not worried. We just want to find an excuse to keep Yao in the US to better prepare for the Rockets.