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Webcams to Enforce Singapore Quarantine
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Apr 10, 2003 03:14 PM
from the now-thats-just-creapy dept.
from the now-thats-just-creapy dept.
magarity writes "Singapore has hired a private security firm to install internet connected webcams in homes of persons quarantined for SARS in order to watch them to see if they go out. They are considering adding electronic wristbands as well. 9 of the 490 persons have broken the quarantine despite a fine of 10,000 singapore dollars ($5,621US). Just over 100 people worldwide have died from SARS so far."
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Captain Tripps... (Score:2, Funny)
Do you dream of the dark man, too?
Re:Captain Tripps... (Score:3, Informative)
Captain Tripps is what they called the killer disease in The Stand... and the Dark Man, aka Randall Flagg, is the bad guy in the book.
The wrist band has an 8' extension cord... (Score:5, Funny)
Now, all dilbert joking aside, this is one disease that scares me... without a common vector identified.... we might all be in for it.
SARS fears.. (Score:3, Insightful)
No kidding. This thing is being reported as the kiss of death. This is the first time I've seen ANYTHING like the following in ANY news report:
Around two-thirds of people diagnosed with SARS in Singapore have recovered.
I wish someone would have said that earlier. It's the last line in the linked article, and it almost seems like an afterthought.
Why is it just l
+1, spooky (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not sufficiently paranoid. OK, maybe you are, in a sort of Howard Huges microbial way, but if you'll turn your creative anxieties a different direction for a moment -- to the powers of the state -- maybe you'll understand why death pena
Re:The wrist band has an 8' extension cord... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The wrist band has an 8' extension cord... (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. Figures for infection (death) from the latest BBC story on SARS [bbc.co.uk]:
Hong Kong 970 (27) 2.8%
Singapore 118 (9) 7.6%
Canada 91 (10) 11.0%
These three countries have medical facilities on par with those in the United States. The numbers are too small to arrive at a precise mortality rate, but your hypothesis is clearly wrong.
Parent
Re:The wrist band has an 8' extension cord... (Score:3, Informative)
Frankly I'm not running for my surgical mask just yet.
-j
Re:The wrist band has an 8' extension cord... (Score:3, Informative)
The cockroaches thing has no basis in scientific fact. (I am living in Toronto, a SARS hotspot, so the news keeps us VERY up to date on such things.)
x10 camera! (Score:5, Funny)
Failing that, meet in in Boulder. Mother Abigail said that The Dark Man is gathering his own on the other side of the mountains. . .
Click here! (Score:4, Funny)
What's the big deal? (Score:2, Flamebait)
We don't put electronic trackers on people with measles. Yet more government knee-jerk reactions....
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
thats at least one student in a highschool class.
at least one person in your extended family.
it does need to be quarantined, or we are all fscked.
Parent
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Informative)
What the parent poster hinted at, and you completely missed, is that measles, among a number of other diseases, have higher mortality rates than just 4%.
Google for it (something the parent poster also mentioned).
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Informative)
2 deaths per thousand cases does not make 4%. It makes 0.2%. That's a very different number. You're pretty silly to be correcting someone when you're willing to take one person's blind assertion over another's without any validation.
More context - flu killed 64,000 in US in '99 (Score:3, Informative)
That's right - Influenza killed 63,730 people in the US in 1999, according to the CDC. Flu has a mortality rate of around 1.5%.
If you want to make a *very* rough extrapolation of the data, assuming that SARS is about as virulent and becomes as prevelent as influenza, you might expect it to kill *at least* 130,000 people in the US per year. Bear in mind that the widespread use of an influenza vaccine reduces 'flu deaths considerably... we don't yet have a vaccine for SARS.
That would conservatively put SARS
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like some others have said, how would YOU feel if someone you knew was one of those 4%. I think your knee would jerk pretty high.
Parent
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3)
4% mortality rate may not seem that high, but consider this... how many times have you had a cold in your life? Knowing that SARS is transmitted as easily as the common cold, how does that 4% mortality rate seem now? Think of it this way... there's very little chance that you'd live long enough to have 20 colds.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
The 4% mortality rate is before all of the hospitals are full and before the world's supply of available respirators is exhausted. If 1,000,000 people in one country catch this, things could be different.
I'm just hoping that this virus mellows out a little bit as it goes through multiple generations in humans, as some viruses have been known to do. That might be the only way it will slow down.
Parent
Doesn't matter, they're ignoring the quarantine... (Score:5, Informative)
And, by the way, it's now been discovered to be a relative [yahoo.com] of one of the many viruses that cause the common cold. But that kind of got overshadowed by all the war news.
As did the anti-war protest database [yahoo.com] being kept by the NYPD. But ignore this, it's off topic.
Parent
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
With SARS we're also dealing with something we don't entirely understand yet. I'm personally impressed with how serious it's being treated. If anything, it helps us practice in case of a more significant situation.
Better safe than sorry, you know?
Parent
don't know the mortality rate yet (Score:3, Insightful)
It's too early to state a mortality rate for SARS. Most of the people who have the syndrome were diagnosed much more recently than the first batch of victims, and we don't know how many of the current patients will survive. Simply looking at the number of people who have already died compared to the number of current cases (like some reporters have tried) does not give you reliable statistics in this case.
Also, the seriousness of a
Flu Pandemic of 1918 - 3 % mortality. (Score:5, Insightful)
SARS seems to be *at least* as transmissible as the 1918 flu was.
That's why.
Parent
Re:Flu Pandemic of 1918 - 3 % mortality. (Score:3, Informative)
Google here I come ...
#4 on the hit chart [essortment.com]-
Re:the goal is eradication, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even having no humans infected at any given time doesn't guarantee it doesn't pop up from time to time (like Ebola).
The unique thing about smallpox (the example you gave) is that it had no carrier and no host. (Malaria for instance has a carrier; I don't know if it infects o
reality TV? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is Singapore... (Score:4, Insightful)
And to head off the inevitable Ashcroft / Patriot Act recriminations, please offer actual *proof* of claims that our civil liberties are being eroded.
Re:This is Singapore... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is Singapore... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not A Joke (Score:5, Informative)
by bricriu (184334) on Wednesday April 09, @03:39PM (#5695030)
(http://slashdot.org/)
You can be detained, without being charged, indefinitely, having been investigated under a sealed warrant, an unsigned warrant, or no warrant at all, and then be denied access to a lawyer.
And that is un-American. Period.
Parent
Re:This is Singapore... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This is Singapore... (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, there's much to criticize in either example, and of course just because one place gets it right; a) doesn't mean it will work everywhere, and b) doesn't mean you would personally want that offal where you live.
NB, I am not saying t
One day a killer one will come along... (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like we may get lucky this time -- hopefully. If a real killer virus hits, we're all doomed. :(
Re:One day a killer one will come along... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, I'm all for the complete extinction of the human race. But I'm still a big believer in common courtesy, so...
You first.
Not quite as bad as summary makes it sound.... (Score:5, Informative)
Next big reality series is on it's way.... (Score:5, Funny)
If they're using Microsoft Webcams... (Score:5, Funny)
SARS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SARS (Score:3, Informative)
It's not that BAD (Score:4, Informative)
Malaria kills almost 1 million world wide per year.
It is also important to mention that SARS could just be a wake up call, one which prods the public to pursue these deadly diseases. If anything, SARS will establish guidelines to prevent future disease outbreaks.
http://www.cbsnews. com/stories/1998/08/01/48hours/main22761.shtml
Re:It's not that BAD (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's not that BAD (Score:3, Insightful)
If it has an animal host, we are screwed. We either all get it, or we get immunization.
If not, it may be able to cause it to burn out through quarantine and other infection control measures.
One thing not shown in t
In Other News (Score:5, Funny)
Dave, I'm seeing SARS (Score:4, Insightful)
This would mean, for example, that in a few years we may have airborne varient strains of other viruses. Now, should an airborne strain of some slow infection cycle be created (like HIV/AIDS, or a pneumonia with a very slow cycle), then most of the world will be infected before the first casualty occurs. Obviously this is fatal situation for mankind. It's not the quick diseases like ebola that we have to fear, it's the slow ones.
Hope it doesn't happen, but with population densities growing I expect that it will.
Comments?
Forced Confinement (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact one school and an office (HP in markham) have been closed because people refused to obey the voluntary isolation.
I even have family that works in one of the hospitals downtown. There's a lot of FUD about SARS on the news, but I'm not worried. I don't know anyone who's sick and while there are a few new cases being announced, the spread isn't rapid. So I'll just keep reading
Please, don't be so ignorant (Score:3, Informative)
The Who? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Chinese Support Invading People's Privacy (Score:3, Informative)
China != Singapore. Singapore is an independant state with its own (authoritarian) government. A majority of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese, but there are also large Malay and Indian ethnic groups.
FYI (Score:5, Informative)
Your opinions are severly prejudice.
Singapore is a western country, with a high GDP, a less corrupt government than the US (read corporate influence). The racial mix of SG is Malay, Chinese and others, christian, muslim and buddhist in strong numbers. There is no clear majority [do all people with 'slitty eyes' look the same to you?].
Take Hawaii for example, a mix of Pacific Islanders, Japanese, Chinese White and African Americans - would you like to call that an East Asian country full of people "_NOT_ like us"???
Your numbered points are laughable - take point 2 for some crass idiocy "most Taiwanese want Tibet to be in one China" - Taiwanese believe China is an occupied country and Taiwan should take control of it!!! Totally opposite!
I hope you are as unsuccessful as you are stupid, you surely deserve it.
Parent
Re:Clean up your countries (Score:4, Informative)
Put it this way, they're so concerned about keeping the city clean, that even chewing gum is banned.
Parent
Re:Clean up your countries (Score:4, Insightful)
The more we 'sanitize' our society the more susceptible we all are when a big bad bug comes along. Personally, I keep myself clean and all, but I will not use anti-bacterial products, with the excpetions of neosporin when I cut myself. The minute amounts of bactieria, firuses, molds, etc that I probably ingest build my immune system.
Its not a statistically good sampling, but of my friends that are anti-bacterial everything, and my friends that are more like me. The ones that dont use anti-bacterial products tend to get sick less often, and are sick for shorter durations than the people I know that are nuts about anti-bacterial products.
So I think we need to watch out for these sanitary guidelines - too much is a bad thing.
Parent