i do agree that the media does over exxagerate almost everything cutting out the truth and marketing those little words that stop people in there steps and forces them to read and believe what there being told, such as global killer, but in this case somthing that scientist know nothing about except its killing people, i think its good to over exaggerate to a point cuz other wise alot of people would write it off and never think twice about it, and if people werent forced to be aware of certain things it could be dangerous. However your right about the fact that this wasnt the medias intentions all they wanted were paper sales and ratings. I mean you dont hear anyhting about how scientists are still researching this and find that it is very treatable if cought early because that doesnt sell papers. But J-lo's a*ss does so if things are over exxagerated its due more to the peoples gullibility, i just think somethings are good to be exgerated even though alot of it is just to sell money your still given favts that wouldnt be given if the media diddnt feel it was marketible
Actually, what scientists knew was this:
SARS was a nasty version of a prexisting bug that was killing some people.
That was IT. On a list of medical worries, SARS was WAY down the list. There were many many many more things that Doctors were worried about. Malaria kills more people every hour than SARS killed in its entire cycle. The common flu kills 36000 people a year in the US. SARS didn't kill any. SARS has a mortality rate of about 4%- and nearly all of that the old and infirm.
It was NOT a nice disease, as is true with any disease that kills, but it was just one of many many things that are out there, and the scientists always knew it, and were saying so all the way through the hysteria. Why, then, did it receive so much attention? Purely because it escaped from China to the Western world, which is apparently an unforgivable crime. No-one would have given a damn about it if it had stayed in Asia- as did the Hong Kong 'Chicken Flu' from a few years back, which killed over ten times as many people but which no-one really remembers if they even heard of it in the first place.
But yes, a media hungry for stories, and a few establishments eager for funding, exaggerated the importance of this very small potato to ridiculous proportions! If every infectious disease that killed as many as SARS did got such treatment then the papers would be 1000 pages long each day. All the Doctors could do was sit back and laugh and tell 999 of 1000 people that came before them panicking that no, they just had a cold.
And this was the price. People panicked. People watsed money, Toronto lost about a billion dollars in business- that's money lost to the people. And the dark side? Asians ignored, boycotted, even assaulted as potential plague carriers. All for this nothing- this hysteria that caused more problems than the disease itself.
Which is not to lesson the impact upon its victims. But it's a disease- this happens every day, all around us, and there is much much worse. We all have to learn to live with that. Hysteria solves nothing.
Very well put USH, i only went on so much about it because at first i thought you were degading the significance of the deaths , i still do think exagerations on some things in the media are nessicary because sometimes rather than the truth it does take BIG BOLD scary words to convince people and if thats what it takes well thats what it takes, i do totally agree with you, i had just gotten worked up because i thought you were making an understatment to the deaths of the people