...Just as Resistance to Increased PAX-Monitoring Was Gathering
Steam
Just as various groups and individuals were awakening to the
threat to liberty that more-intrusive passenger profiling
(including financial and medical backgrounds) presents, a new,
"mystery" illness has appeared, and government health institutions
are calling for measures to protect us all from it.
The
previously-unknown illness, now known as SARS (Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome), carries pneumonia-like symptoms. We're being
told it (and not the garden-variety pneumonias) has killed ten
people already, and that it is apparently being spread from China
to the rest of the world on airliners. Thus, the new and immediate
need for medical-history screening, worldwide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a weekend warning,
calling this new disease a "world-wide threat." So far, they say it
has been detected on three continents -- Asia, Europe, and North
America.
For now, airlines are being asked to look out for people with
high fevers, particularly if accompanied by respiratory problems --
conditions which, it must be presumed, no one at the airlines (or
Immigration, or Customs?) was watching out for, in the first
place.
Since the illness is so new, no one is willling to say for
certain whether it's a bacterium-caused, or a viral, problem. All
officials know is, it's communicable, and it's bad, and the
airlines should stop its spread. Current suspected cases are being
treated with heavy doses of both anti-viral drugs and
antibiotics.
WHO says officially, "To date, almost all
reported cases have occurred in health workers involved in the
direct care of reported cases or in close contacts, such as family
members. There is no evidence to date that the disease spreads
though casual contact."
Here's what to expect, if you've got it: first, you'll get a
headache, followed by a fever and a sore throat. Later, you'll
start coughing, and you'll develop pneumonia. Since they don't know
what's causing the problem, treatment isn't on the shelf;
'identification and containment' seems to be the best strategy.
So far, the disease, first-reported in the past couple weeks,
has claimed ten lives worldwide.
All airlines not especially-charged with carrying infectious
passengers, routinely deny flight to anyone with any such obvious
conditions. So far, there has not been any government-mandated
additional health check, anywhere in the world, that we can
confirm.