Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Sunday Morning
The Spread of SARS
Aired April 27, 2003 - 09:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: In Taiwan, the government has announced an automatic quarantine for anyone arriving from a country on a SARS watch list. People arriving from China, Hong Kong, as well as Toronto, will be quarantined until they can be examined and pronounced free of SARS.
Now, earlier this week, Singapore, Japan, as well as the UAE started using advanced heat scanners to detect fevers in people entering the countries. A fever of at least 100.4 is one of the symptoms of SARS. For the latest SARS news, as well as perspective on its impact here in the U.S., we're joined by our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, let's talk about SARS around the world, and let's start in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, there have been reports of 6 new deaths. Now, something interesting about these deaths is that they have been in relatively young people. Ages 28, 38, 40, 61, and 45. And one in a man who was age 70. And only that one, the 70-year-old man, had a chronic disease. So one of the very sad things about this disease is that it does kill people who are relatively young and who don't have any other chronic illnesses.
In other parts of the world, at least four major cruise lines are asking passengers who have recently been to Toronto to be medically screened before boarding. Now, these lines have already been denying boarding to anyone from who had been in or traveled through China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam.
In Canada, there have now been 20 deaths due to SARS. And in Canada this week, there was a big fight between the World Health Organization and Canadian health authorities. The World Health Organization is telling travelers, do not go to Toronto unless you absolutely have to. Canadian health authorities say that that's overkill, and the World Health Organization is now saying that on Tuesday they will review whether or not to rescind that order.
Now, there's news of a different sort in Vietnam. In Vietnam, they have not had a death -- I'm sorry, have not had a new case in Vietnam for 19 days. No new cases of SARS in Vietnam for 19 days. The World Health Organization says if that continues, they may remove Vietnam from the list of SARS countries. The World Health Organization says that would make Vietnam the first country to have SARS under control.
In the United States, there are now 41 probable cases of SARS. There have been no deaths.
Now, let's put SARS in perspective a little bit in this country. Deaths from SARS, zero. Deaths from West Nile virus in 2002, 284. Deaths from flu, every year, approximately 36,000. So that helps put the SARS epidemic in the United States into perspective -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, certainly alarming numbers, nevertheless. Now, SARS is having a major impact on tourism and travel warnings in effect for Toronto, Hong Kong and parts of mainland China.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: So how concerned are you about SARS? We do have a phone number for you to call in as well. 1-800-807-2620. That's 1-800-807-2620. Call in with your questions. We'll be joined by our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, she's here to answer your questions, along with CNN's Beijing bureau chief, Jamie FlorCruz. And from New York, Wendy Perrin of "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine.
COOPER: We've been getting a lot of e-mails all morning already from people. Jaime, this first e-mail is from Jenny in Illinois. Jenny writes in, "Why did SARS spread so fast in China? Did they not take proper precautions fast enough? With the numbers so high, do you think it's unrealistic that the spread of SARS can be stopped, and how effective can quarantines really be? Aren't they just biding time for a vaccine?"
JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Anderson, the Chinese dragged their feet for several months, since the first cases of SARS were reported in November. So they did lose a lot of time. They should have -- had they acted faster and more forcefully, they probably could have contained a lot of the -- or avoided a lot of the infections that are now spreading in China.
Also, it's a very difficult job to contain such a mysterious disease as SARS. You can imagine that Singapore and Toronto, very modern, sophisticated cities with state of the art medical equipment and medical systems are having a hard time. Now, a place as vast as China, with 1 billion people, millions of people always on the move, it's 100 times more difficult to contain it -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right.
ARENA: Well, we have another e-mail question from Susan. We'll put this to Elizabeth Cohen. Susan writes, "We are planning to visit Walt Disney World in Florida next month and wondered if we should be concerned about visitors from China, Canada, etc., since many other people from other countries visit the park." Elizabeth?
COHEN: Well, Susan, I'll give you the answer that the Centers for Disease Control gave when people asked questions about whether or not athletes who visit -- who are playing in the park in Toronto, if they should have special concerns. And the CDC said no, there's no special concerns when you're in a place that has -- or in a city where SARS has been.
When you're in Disney world, you're not surrounded by people who have SARS. You need to think about it really seriously. There may be people from other countries where they have SARS but that doesn't mean that these people have SARS. As a matter of fact, the statistics will tell you they probably don't have SARS.
Now, of course, you wouldn't go running up and hugging and kissing someone who you don't know, so you want to take sort of you know, regular precautions. That'd be, you would want to wash your hands often, for example, but you would be doing that anyhow. But no, there would be no special concerns if you were visiting Disney land.
COOPER: All right, got another question, this one now, let's give it to Wendy Perrin of "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine.
Randall writes in, "What's being done at Canada's borders to protect against trucks that are delivering goods to USA companies?" This may be a little specific for you. Sorry to throw this at you.
Randall writes, also, "I receive truckers each day coming from Canada and have worried about this. My company response is, 'We have not thought about it.'" Any thoughts, Wendy?
WENDY PERRIN, "CONDE NAST TRAVELER": Well, actually, I'm not sure exactly what precautions they're taking against SARS at the border. They've definitely tightened up border control ever since September 11, they've been doing a lot more there at the Canadian border.
What's interesting is that some cruise lines actually are -- we're talking about cruises earlier. They're not letting Toronto residents board cruise ships and so it could be that they're doing a lot more now to try to keep Toronto -- you know, I'm really just not sure.
COOPER: Let me give that to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, any thoughts?
COHEN: Yes. What they've started doing in the past few days in Canada, is that when people are driving across the border from Canada to the United States, many of those border crossings, they're giving them a card that says you may have been exposed to SARS while you were in Canada. If you get sick, if you get a cough and a fever, you need to call your doctor. And they're telling them what the symptoms are, and they're telling them to watch out for them.
Hopefully that should help contain the spread, because there have been Americans who have gone to Canada and come back with SARS.
COOPER: Wendy, I want to toss one to you. This is from inminegar1. Inminegar writes in, saying, "Is there any scare of SARS in traveling to California and back to Michigan? We like Chinatowns, especially in San Francisco. Is it safe to go there?"
Is that something you're hearing from your readers a lot? Fears of going to Chinatowns in various places?
PERRIN: Actually, we're not hearing that at all. What we're hearing from them, it's interesting. Our readers are definitely continuing to travel. According to a recent survey we did, 99 percent of them are still going to travel, but it's very interesting. 44 percent of them say that they're going to be changing the destinations they travel to as a result of SARS. And what's so interesting is that that's a -- SARS is affecting their travel plans much more than the situation in the Middle East is.
COOPER: Interesting.
COHEN: I think we ought to remember, as far as Chinatowns go, there's no indication that you need to be worried whatsoever about going to the various Chinatowns in the United States. There's no more SARS there than there is in any other place in the United States.
ARENA: We do have another question, from Cheryl in Pennsylvania. We'll direct this toward Jaime. She writes, "My question is basic and simple. How exactly did this SARS disease just appear? Biologically speaking, is there something within China, and the countries infected, that would make them unique to this disease? What is actually being done to isolate SARS from spreading and calm the fears of the world? How do we know we are safe?" -- Jaime.
FLORCRUZ: Yes, the World Health Organization experts are still looking into this, and there's still no clear verdict on it. The theory is that it originated in the place in this southern province of Guangdong, perhaps corona virus strain caused it.
And that the suspicion is that Guangdong is perhaps, because of its weather, its geography, the life style of people who live close to the animal that they eat, perhaps the theory is that it's a petri dish of viruses like this. Except that this one is such a mysterious and different strain and, I think, all the experts in the world are still trying to figure out just exactly what kind it is.
ARENA: Elizabeth, I know you've done some reporting on that as well.
COHEN: That's right. Jaime mentioned living in close proximity to animals. They don't really know how SARS started, but here's one theory that I've heard from scientists. Which is that if you're in a place where people are close to animals, and animals of different types are together, what might have happened is that a corona virus from a pig joined genetic forces with a corona virus from a fowl, from a duck or from a chicken. That they mixed up their genetic components, the two animals, the corona viruses from the two animals, and then it spread to people.
That's why, when people get people started getting sick, it looked so strange, because no one had ever seen this particular strain of corona virus before.
COOPER: Wendy, would you counsel your readers of "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine. There's got to be a lot of questions about whether or not to go to Toronto. You have the WHO saying, don't go unless it's essential travel, but yet the CDC saying, not putting out the same kind of warnings. What do you tell your readers?
PERRIN: Well, you know, it's interesting. What our readers are telling us is that right now, they're not willing to go to Toronto, although they are very willing to go to other places in Canada, such as Vancouver.
I would probably tell them to go with what the CDC says, which is it's OK to go to Toronto as long as you take the appropriate precautions.
COOPER: And Elizabeth, would you back that up?
COHEN: That's right. Let's talk about some of those precautions that the CDC tells you to do. They say, pack a medical kit, and make sure you have gloves and masks in that medical kit. You don't need to use them right away. But you may need to. They say bring them with you. And wash your hands often. Another one, particularly important, is to stay near a computer, check the websites for Health Canada and for the CDC and for the WHO, because this is changing all the time.
COOPER: All right. Appreciate all of you joining us. Wendy Perrin with "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine, Elizabeth Cohen, and Jaime FlorCruz in Beijing. Appreciate it. It was interesting. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 27, 2003 - 09:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: In Taiwan, the government has announced an automatic quarantine for anyone arriving from a country on a SARS watch list. People arriving from China, Hong Kong, as well as Toronto, will be quarantined until they can be examined and pronounced free of SARS.
Now, earlier this week, Singapore, Japan, as well as the UAE started using advanced heat scanners to detect fevers in people entering the countries. A fever of at least 100.4 is one of the symptoms of SARS. For the latest SARS news, as well as perspective on its impact here in the U.S., we're joined by our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, let's talk about SARS around the world, and let's start in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, there have been reports of 6 new deaths. Now, something interesting about these deaths is that they have been in relatively young people. Ages 28, 38, 40, 61, and 45. And one in a man who was age 70. And only that one, the 70-year-old man, had a chronic disease. So one of the very sad things about this disease is that it does kill people who are relatively young and who don't have any other chronic illnesses.
In other parts of the world, at least four major cruise lines are asking passengers who have recently been to Toronto to be medically screened before boarding. Now, these lines have already been denying boarding to anyone from who had been in or traveled through China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam.
In Canada, there have now been 20 deaths due to SARS. And in Canada this week, there was a big fight between the World Health Organization and Canadian health authorities. The World Health Organization is telling travelers, do not go to Toronto unless you absolutely have to. Canadian health authorities say that that's overkill, and the World Health Organization is now saying that on Tuesday they will review whether or not to rescind that order.
Now, there's news of a different sort in Vietnam. In Vietnam, they have not had a death -- I'm sorry, have not had a new case in Vietnam for 19 days. No new cases of SARS in Vietnam for 19 days. The World Health Organization says if that continues, they may remove Vietnam from the list of SARS countries. The World Health Organization says that would make Vietnam the first country to have SARS under control.
In the United States, there are now 41 probable cases of SARS. There have been no deaths.
Now, let's put SARS in perspective a little bit in this country. Deaths from SARS, zero. Deaths from West Nile virus in 2002, 284. Deaths from flu, every year, approximately 36,000. So that helps put the SARS epidemic in the United States into perspective -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, certainly alarming numbers, nevertheless. Now, SARS is having a major impact on tourism and travel warnings in effect for Toronto, Hong Kong and parts of mainland China.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: So how concerned are you about SARS? We do have a phone number for you to call in as well. 1-800-807-2620. That's 1-800-807-2620. Call in with your questions. We'll be joined by our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, she's here to answer your questions, along with CNN's Beijing bureau chief, Jamie FlorCruz. And from New York, Wendy Perrin of "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine.
COOPER: We've been getting a lot of e-mails all morning already from people. Jaime, this first e-mail is from Jenny in Illinois. Jenny writes in, "Why did SARS spread so fast in China? Did they not take proper precautions fast enough? With the numbers so high, do you think it's unrealistic that the spread of SARS can be stopped, and how effective can quarantines really be? Aren't they just biding time for a vaccine?"
JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Anderson, the Chinese dragged their feet for several months, since the first cases of SARS were reported in November. So they did lose a lot of time. They should have -- had they acted faster and more forcefully, they probably could have contained a lot of the -- or avoided a lot of the infections that are now spreading in China.
Also, it's a very difficult job to contain such a mysterious disease as SARS. You can imagine that Singapore and Toronto, very modern, sophisticated cities with state of the art medical equipment and medical systems are having a hard time. Now, a place as vast as China, with 1 billion people, millions of people always on the move, it's 100 times more difficult to contain it -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right.
ARENA: Well, we have another e-mail question from Susan. We'll put this to Elizabeth Cohen. Susan writes, "We are planning to visit Walt Disney World in Florida next month and wondered if we should be concerned about visitors from China, Canada, etc., since many other people from other countries visit the park." Elizabeth?
COHEN: Well, Susan, I'll give you the answer that the Centers for Disease Control gave when people asked questions about whether or not athletes who visit -- who are playing in the park in Toronto, if they should have special concerns. And the CDC said no, there's no special concerns when you're in a place that has -- or in a city where SARS has been.
When you're in Disney world, you're not surrounded by people who have SARS. You need to think about it really seriously. There may be people from other countries where they have SARS but that doesn't mean that these people have SARS. As a matter of fact, the statistics will tell you they probably don't have SARS.
Now, of course, you wouldn't go running up and hugging and kissing someone who you don't know, so you want to take sort of you know, regular precautions. That'd be, you would want to wash your hands often, for example, but you would be doing that anyhow. But no, there would be no special concerns if you were visiting Disney land.
COOPER: All right, got another question, this one now, let's give it to Wendy Perrin of "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine.
Randall writes in, "What's being done at Canada's borders to protect against trucks that are delivering goods to USA companies?" This may be a little specific for you. Sorry to throw this at you.
Randall writes, also, "I receive truckers each day coming from Canada and have worried about this. My company response is, 'We have not thought about it.'" Any thoughts, Wendy?
WENDY PERRIN, "CONDE NAST TRAVELER": Well, actually, I'm not sure exactly what precautions they're taking against SARS at the border. They've definitely tightened up border control ever since September 11, they've been doing a lot more there at the Canadian border.
What's interesting is that some cruise lines actually are -- we're talking about cruises earlier. They're not letting Toronto residents board cruise ships and so it could be that they're doing a lot more now to try to keep Toronto -- you know, I'm really just not sure.
COOPER: Let me give that to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, any thoughts?
COHEN: Yes. What they've started doing in the past few days in Canada, is that when people are driving across the border from Canada to the United States, many of those border crossings, they're giving them a card that says you may have been exposed to SARS while you were in Canada. If you get sick, if you get a cough and a fever, you need to call your doctor. And they're telling them what the symptoms are, and they're telling them to watch out for them.
Hopefully that should help contain the spread, because there have been Americans who have gone to Canada and come back with SARS.
COOPER: Wendy, I want to toss one to you. This is from inminegar1. Inminegar writes in, saying, "Is there any scare of SARS in traveling to California and back to Michigan? We like Chinatowns, especially in San Francisco. Is it safe to go there?"
Is that something you're hearing from your readers a lot? Fears of going to Chinatowns in various places?
PERRIN: Actually, we're not hearing that at all. What we're hearing from them, it's interesting. Our readers are definitely continuing to travel. According to a recent survey we did, 99 percent of them are still going to travel, but it's very interesting. 44 percent of them say that they're going to be changing the destinations they travel to as a result of SARS. And what's so interesting is that that's a -- SARS is affecting their travel plans much more than the situation in the Middle East is.
COOPER: Interesting.
COHEN: I think we ought to remember, as far as Chinatowns go, there's no indication that you need to be worried whatsoever about going to the various Chinatowns in the United States. There's no more SARS there than there is in any other place in the United States.
ARENA: We do have another question, from Cheryl in Pennsylvania. We'll direct this toward Jaime. She writes, "My question is basic and simple. How exactly did this SARS disease just appear? Biologically speaking, is there something within China, and the countries infected, that would make them unique to this disease? What is actually being done to isolate SARS from spreading and calm the fears of the world? How do we know we are safe?" -- Jaime.
FLORCRUZ: Yes, the World Health Organization experts are still looking into this, and there's still no clear verdict on it. The theory is that it originated in the place in this southern province of Guangdong, perhaps corona virus strain caused it.
And that the suspicion is that Guangdong is perhaps, because of its weather, its geography, the life style of people who live close to the animal that they eat, perhaps the theory is that it's a petri dish of viruses like this. Except that this one is such a mysterious and different strain and, I think, all the experts in the world are still trying to figure out just exactly what kind it is.
ARENA: Elizabeth, I know you've done some reporting on that as well.
COHEN: That's right. Jaime mentioned living in close proximity to animals. They don't really know how SARS started, but here's one theory that I've heard from scientists. Which is that if you're in a place where people are close to animals, and animals of different types are together, what might have happened is that a corona virus from a pig joined genetic forces with a corona virus from a fowl, from a duck or from a chicken. That they mixed up their genetic components, the two animals, the corona viruses from the two animals, and then it spread to people.
That's why, when people get people started getting sick, it looked so strange, because no one had ever seen this particular strain of corona virus before.
COOPER: Wendy, would you counsel your readers of "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine. There's got to be a lot of questions about whether or not to go to Toronto. You have the WHO saying, don't go unless it's essential travel, but yet the CDC saying, not putting out the same kind of warnings. What do you tell your readers?
PERRIN: Well, you know, it's interesting. What our readers are telling us is that right now, they're not willing to go to Toronto, although they are very willing to go to other places in Canada, such as Vancouver.
I would probably tell them to go with what the CDC says, which is it's OK to go to Toronto as long as you take the appropriate precautions.
COOPER: And Elizabeth, would you back that up?
COHEN: That's right. Let's talk about some of those precautions that the CDC tells you to do. They say, pack a medical kit, and make sure you have gloves and masks in that medical kit. You don't need to use them right away. But you may need to. They say bring them with you. And wash your hands often. Another one, particularly important, is to stay near a computer, check the websites for Health Canada and for the CDC and for the WHO, because this is changing all the time.
COOPER: All right. Appreciate all of you joining us. Wendy Perrin with "Conde Nast Traveler" magazine, Elizabeth Cohen, and Jaime FlorCruz in Beijing. Appreciate it. It was interesting. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
