My personal feeling is that if you don't overblow it somewhat in the media, you won't get people to take this seriously and to stay in quarantine for the full length of time required. I'd like us to keep this one from spreading. There are a lot of nurses and doctors working very hard to keep it that way, and I don't want to minimize their huge efforts by treating this thing too lightly. They are putting their lives and their families' lives on the line for us. They are working long hours under very difficult conditions. They are covering up and still getting the virus. Let's keep the physical impact of this illness in special hospital units, where it belongs, not out and about in the neighbourhoods. It's terrible when and if schools and nursing homes and other community gathering places get shut down because someone breaks quarantine.

I truly don't think that Toronto is a place to be shunning right now. I think we're doing the job very well at containing SARS. If the death rate is low thus far, let's rejoice, but let's not say that people with symptoms or in contact with them can just go wherever they want whenever they want to. I don't believe there is any real danger at this point to the public in normal situations. I am not afraid to go on the subway or to the mall or to a concert or restaurant or movie. I would be hesitant to go into a hospital treating SARS, though.

Does it spread easily? I was told that my friend's father who died of SARS got it just by lying in a bed near to someone with SARS (they were treating it at first as TB) for about 1/2 in the same hospital room. The friend's father did not have low immunity at the time...he was in for a heart condition. He got it within 1/2 hour, then died from it, and soon afterwared, so did his wife. That's sounds pretty contagious and serious to me.

I certainly don't think the way things stand now is worth troubling a whole city's and country's economy over, by shutting us down to visitors. I thank the medics for doing their darndest to keep us (ALL of us, not just those of us here in Toronto) safe from SARS. I hope the federal government will pour down financial rain upon our city.

~b.w.