Some Suspicions

The public library is always a good place to turn when you have a desperate need for information. Skimming the last few days of newspapers showed me that SARS was a new viral epidemic of severe pneumonia caused by a coronavirus. Or was it? Here’s Dr. Frank Plummer, a top virologist at Canada’s main virology laboratory in Winnipeg, saying that only a minority of people are testing positive for the virus, and the percentage is diminishing all the time, from 60% at first, to 50% [Walgate, 2003], and later down to 40% [Altman, 2003]. Some of the cases with the most distinct symptoms are negative. [Walgate, 2003] Plus, 20% of a sample of people not suspected of having SARS were positive. [Altman, 2003] But, here’s a May 3 paper in The Lancet that states that the coronavirus is at least an "important copathogen." But how can it be even be a contributing factor when it isn’t always there?

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