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Comment by angled | Hacker News Reader

My wife just pointed out what might be a spurious anecdote: no Caucasians died during the SARS epidemic in 2003, and none have died so far in response to this novel virus. Is there any data to back this up?

(She was in Beijing during 2003, and saw SARS first hand)

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> no Caucasians died during the SARS epidemic in 2003

That's not accurate:

29 March 2003

Dr. Carlo Urbani, an expert on communicable diseases, died today of SARS. Dr. Urbani, worked in public health programs in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam. He was based in Hanoi, Viet Nam. Dr. Urbani was 46.

https://www.who.int/csr/sars/urbani/en/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Urbani

There are a lot of explanations besides Caucasians being less suseptable. Because of monitoring by authorities one could imagine any Caucasians becoming infected are buisness people and wealthy-ish travellers. They would be healthy with few co-morbidities, are identified during initial symptoms (because of screening) and treated at world class facilities and monitored closely (quarantine and research).

This is just one of the populor rumors during the 2003 SARS epidemic, that because no Caucasian died from the virus, the whole epidemic is a well organized biological war against China.

Like the other comments has pointed out, Dr. Carlo Urbarni is a doctor who died from SARS. He's the one who warned the WHO about the new desease.

Thanks for clarifying!

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