An apartment building in Hong Kong is teeming with the deadly disease, with 213 people infected, the building is now completely quarantined. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) now fear that the disease may be mutating into an airborne virus. That could be really bad. This seems to be a big story all over the world, except in the United States. Apparently, the war on Iraq is much more important than the possibility of the end of the world as we know it. Maybe it's because the media doesn't find a real outbreak story in China as entertaining as a big budget movie with Dustin Hoffman and a barrel of monkeys.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
This is horrifying, very frightening and you are right about the media. Thanks Fabian and welcome.
2 - Ross
It's a terrible situation, and truly a worldwide crisis (two Toronto hospitals are refusing new patients because of it), but personally, I think it's getting a disproportionate amount of coverage. The flu kills far more people every year than this disease likely will.
But it does lead to an interesting picture of a Taiwanese kitty.
P.S. Two books worth examining that relate to this topic are Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague and Betrayal of Trust (sorry for the improper formatting of the links, Eric!)
3 - Jim Carruthers
As a resident of Canada's pre-eminent city Toronto, it gives The Ministry of Consequences an added excuse to never go to Scarborough.
I had a conversation with a friend who works with the public, and she was wondering if she should wear a mask while at work. Since I am a hermit, I couldn't really advise her on this. But I would probably get violent on anybody who coughs on me (because you can't get vengence when you are dying, so better take a pre-emptive strike, since we can see how well that is going).