HONG KONG: When Dr. Yu Cheuk-man, an associate professor of cardiology, tested the clinical skills of a group of medical students in a hospital ward here on March 6, he paid little attention to the 26-year-old pneumonia patient in a nearby bed. But unbeknownst to Dr. Yu or anyone else in the hospital, the patient was not a typical pneumonia case. He was infected with a disease that would be named a week later: SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. Because the patient had been treated with a device to help him cough up the fluid in his lungs, he was spraying tiny virus-laden droplets into the air...NYT: Hong Kong Doctor's Ordeal as SARS Patient.
Also, the death rate from SARS is now believed to be nearing 15%, this via a (reasonably) thoughtful Mefi thread.
originally posted by xowie
