Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - April 23, 2003
J.K. Dineen, Of The Examiner Staff
On the one hand, they have to quell the fears of the public. One the other hand, they go to work knowing that if anyone is at risk, it is health care workers.
"Here is a disease that is infecting health care workers and killing health care workers, like you and me," said Susan Fernyak, director of epidemiology and disease control for the Department of Public Health.
On Tuesday, Fernyak addressed dozens of health care workers at San Francisco General Hospital, giving the latest scientific information on the airborne respiratory disease that infected more than 3,900, mostly in Asia. Thus far San Francisco has only one suspected case of the corona virus, first identified in 2002 in the Guang Dong province of China. In all California has seen 32 suspected cases, of which 15 are probable.
Several health care workers said as worries over SARS grow, health care officials should work to ensure The City's Asian communities are not discriminated against in the way gays were maligned and feared in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
Chief of Specialty Clinics Dick Fine said the reaction to the virus has "disturbing parallels with the early HIV with reports of health care workers refusing to take care of people."
He said San Francisco health care workers, who have always been on the cutting edge of AIDS education and treatment, have a role to play in combating anxieties and fears as prejudices rise to the surface.
"We should have a strong voice in quelling those anxieties," said Fine. "I think it's as much our role as putting on masks."
The disease is thought to be passed in "large respiratory droplets" when an infected person sneezes or coughs. Only those within a five- to six-foot radius of the spreader are thought to be at risk, Fernyak said.
Thus far The City has been "very lucky," Fernyak said.
"We are very lucky we didn't get a super spreader from China or Taiwan in the early days," she said. "There's a lot of luck in this."
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