“Dr Mark Salter, co-coordinator of the WHO Clinical Management Group…said the world should learn to live with a virus that was serious but not hugely infectious, and may already have become part of our environment.”

Um…What?!

So I guess that’s it then…we’re fucked. I hate to sound like an alarmist here, but this is just too big not to take seriously. SARs is far from harmless, and the world can’t afford to “get used” it.

The bottom line is that the SARs virus has been identified as a new type of corona virus – it’s a kissing cousin of the same little shit that causes the common cold. When is the last time you had a cold? What did you take for it? Chicken soup? If you did, it probably helped about at much as all the other crap you tried: Very little, or not at all. The common cold can't be vaccinated against. It also can’t be “cured” once you've got it. The best you can do is take as much as you can to mitigate the symptoms until the virus runs it course, and your body is finally able to fight it off. See the problem here?

This is a cold that can kill, and the World Health Organization is telling us they can’t do anything about it. Including statistics for the cases in China and Hong Kong the worldwide mortality rate for SARs is about 6%. However, because these numbers are highly suspect, some people have put the mortality rate closer to a range of 10-to-20%. That’s just for the 2003 SARS season, what about 2004? 2005?

If you’re the type of person who gets at least one cold a year – which I believe is nearly every mere mortal on Earth – you might want to concern yourself with the spread of SARS.

Thankfully, no one has died from SARS in the US. But that won’t always be the case. There are a lot of people here who don’t have health coverage, so not all of the cases have been reported. There may be many – some possibly fatal - cases of SARS here that we haven’t heard about yet. Don’t rely on the government to tell you whether your safe or not; They don’t know.

If you don’t have health insurance, get it soon. Until then (unless you can afford treatment, and don’t mind getting whacked with one hell of a flu for a week):

- Avoid traveling on planes, trains, and buses.

- Stay out of theaters and auditoriums.

- Do not go to parades, rallies, or any other large gathering of people.

- Wash your hands often – really often.

- If you work at an office don’t use another person’s mouse or key board before sanitizing it. The same goes for public restrooms (On second thought, it’s probably best to avoid these all together).

- Finally, if you live or work in a city, wear a damn mask (Think of it as duct tape and plastic sheeting for your face).

The 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic killed as many as 40 million people. Sure that was a long time ago, and medicine has gotten a lot better since, but that was also before any and every ass-munch on Earth could jump on a flight to anywhere – or several anywheres for that matter. If the lowest estimated mortality rate of 3% is accurate, we’re looking at 186 million deaths worldwide. That’s our minimum. A maximum mortality rate of 20% will reduce the global population by 1.24 billion people. Either way, it’s not looking good for team Homo Sapien.

The spread of this virus will not stop, and it looks like we’re on our own until this thing mutates itself to death and goes away for another hundred years.

But hey, at least Tariq Aziz is in custody!

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