The Economist on SARS:

The question is, are people overreacting? After all, only 4% of those laid low by SARS have died so far. Ebola fever, to take a contrasting example, can kill 90% of those infected. It is not, though, the deadliness of SARS that urges caution, but its novelty. SARS is not an age-old affliction like plague or cholera, with well-established modes of transmission and means of control. While public-health teams have determined quickly what causes SARS, how to diagnose it and how best to treat it, they are still unsure how it spreads and how long it will last.

As Britain's sorry story of mad-cow disease illustrates, in the face of such uncertainty, precautionary measures, however painful, probably cost less in terms of lives, dollars and blame than telling people to carry on with business as usual. Warnings not to travel to the region, and even measures of quarantine on those coming from it, accordingly seem justified for the time being. If China objects, one good response is that it was the failure by the Chinese authorities to inform the outside world that they had an unusual disease on their hands that robbed researchers of vital time to work out what was going on. The earliest cases of SARS emerged in Guangdong in November, but the WHO first heard about the disease in February�and even then through unofficial channels.

Political machinations, combined with a culture of secrecy, mean that China has a bad record in coming clean about disease, as its emerging AIDS epidemic also shows. Although the Chinese government has worked out a plan with the WHO to detect and monitor influenza epidemics, it has not implemented it. Only this week did it belatedly agree to let in WHO experts. Such recalcitrance is unacceptable. If China wants to be taken seriously as a modernising (if poor) country, it must deal more openly with disease risks that could affect its partners through trade and travel.

Well, I think people are over-reacting, but then again, you won't see me in Asia anytime soon. Hey, I got other places to go.