I just read this on the CBC:

Dr. Donald Low, the chief microbiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto who played a key role in battling the SARS crisis in 2003, says while there haven’t been any confirmed cases in Canada yet, it could be just a matter of time before they appear.

What irks me about this is the way SARS is presented again. Yes, there was an outbreak, and yes it quickly spread through air travel to other parts of the world, but the mortality rate of the “pandemic” was a joke back then and the world overreacted, not in the least the panic caused by the media.

And now we have the swine flu virus making the rounds, and yes it does seem to be more deadly than “even” SARS, but the only reason people get all worked up about it is because of the fact that it quickly sprang north into the “civilized” world.

Sure, there is a potential that we will face a pandemic in the not too distant future, but the way SARS was reported on (and now the Swine Virus) is doing more damage than good in my opinion.

Travel advisories and informing people is one thing. But getting people to panic (and most people do when they hear about deaths, regardless of the probability of actually dying from an infection) is counter effective. When Toronto declared the SARS emergency ERs and doctors where overrun with concerned people.

Doctor Low sinks even lower (unless he’s being misquoted) when he says:

“What you’re seeing here is the makings of a pandemic,” Low said. “You’re seeing a new virus that we have no natural immunity to. You’re seeing a virus that can cause disease, and in causing disease, can transmit from person to person.

Viruses always appear, this is why every year the flu vaccines need to be updated. Our bodies do have the ability to adapt to these changes as well and considering the amount of people who seem to have been infected and the number of deaths I’d say our immune system still can cope with it.

He then continues on:

“All it needs to complete that equation is the recognition that it’s spreading over a wide geographical area. And I think that’s what we’re hearing this weekend, that it’s actually happening,” he said.

Although he is right, unless it is a very virulent and aggressive strain (read, it transmits over the air, is not at all detected by the immune system and kills within a few hours after infection) this is, although a concern, no reason to panic.

Viruses (and in fact larger things like animals) have travelled with humans ever since we gained mobility. We have brought different species to other continents and used “biological warfare” in North America when we introduced the European Smallpox strain to the original inhabitants of North America.

But since then we have made huge progress, we know what a Virus is, we know what Bacteria are and we have a much better undstanding in how to fight the diseases. The fear mongering in the media right now though makes things worse in the short run, because everybody with a runny nose who was not even close to anybody from Mexico City will now wonder if s/he got infected and run to the doctors.

I really wish the media would be less sensationalistic and more realistic in their reporting, but then: “If it bleeds it leads”.