According to new reports now, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in Toronto is back on the front burner. What has been happening is this: The Ontario Government is jiggering the way they report potential cases of SARS. Some days they use the World Health Organization rules, other days the Center for Disease Control rules. On different days still, they use the Texas Rule (Is it dead? Yup, then ta hell with it”) of Reporting.
This is all just so much silliness. SARS is confined to one hospital and a couple dozen patients, who are almost all healthcare workers. Depending on whose reporting rules you use, having a head cold can count as a possible SARS infection.
The prudent and sensible action is to quarantine those who exhibit symptoms. The symptoms are: Tiredness, dizziness, dry cough, low-grade fever, aches and pains, chills and congestion. If this sounds like someone on Benadryl who is allergic to pollen, or the documented side effects of almost all prescriptions medication, then you are just as confused as we are. The quarantine is simple: Ten days. No contact. If you don’t develop full-blown SARS, then you’re fine.
SARS can and does kill, essentially like Pneumonia, except the transmission carrier is not a Pneumococcal virus, but the Corona Virus. Pneumonia is so common in hospitals that patients who don’t get post-operative Pneumonia are considered strange and unusual. If you swabbed your hands right now and cultured the swabs, you would find Corona Virus growing like summer corn along with e.coli, salmonella and a host of other scary sounding bugs that could all, potentially, kill you.
Did you know that you have close to 40 liters of Volatile Organic Compounds in your possession right now? A known carcinogen, a known mutagen, highly toxic, explosive, highly flammable, this substance can cause brain damage or death if even small amounts are ingested?
On top of all that, it’s stored with little or no regard for general public safety, health risks or even good labeling. People even store it in rusty, sometimes leaky, metal cans. It’s all through the water supply and the food chain, poisoning untold numbers of children, seniors and pregnant women, causing potential birth defects, premature birth, skin rashes, burns, blindness, irreversible brain damage and deaths.
Where is the government in all of this, allowing people to have and store such potent, dangerous, chemistry in such an irresponsible, lackadaisical way? We demand a thorough investigation!
It’s called Gasoline. You have some in your car.
When you see a SARS story, do try to keep it in perspective.
RoadDave 