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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ralts Bloodthorne" data-source="post: 861962" data-attributes="member: 6390">My $1.50I figured I'd add a bit in here...I'm not that concerned, because, personally, I don't care.Now, with that said, let me explain a few things that may have been missed by everyone else...SARS in viral. A gas mask or a breathing mask will help you about as much as pouring gasoline on yourself to survive a housefire. At best, it makes you look foolish. At worst, it makes you overconfidant, careless, and deadly.SARS can survive up to 24 hours outside of a host. That means: On a doorknob. On that table at McDonald's you sat down and ate at that some disease ridden slob sneezed on instead of covering his mouth. In the air, where that rude chick coughed in your face at the movie theater line.This disease is much like the older ones that cropped up, killed everyone slowly, then vanished, because all of the hosts died. Unfortunately, in this era of rapid mass transit, someone who is sick can board a plane, infect 10-15 people around them (God forbid it's a child running up and down the airplane aisle) who then begin to infect people a few days later, and the only tie-in is airline travel.This stuff is deadly. I've seen many different death toll estimates, some higher, some lower than the 300 death toll rate. Some of the reports are frightening, especially those coming from CDC and WHO.The difference between this and Malaria? I went to Panama, and was given pills. I didn't catch Malaria. One of the other guys I was with scoffed at the idea of catching a disease most people don't get, and did not take his pills. He got it.Because he was stupid.The difference is: Malaria is treatable in nearly all stages, if you get this thing, you are in trouble.SARS is a corona virus, very few corona viruses can affect humans but all of them that do, are deadly.SARS has possibly mutated already. Possibly more than once. This could be a problem. One of the big problems with the Bubonic Plague is it had 3 disease vector, 3 different mutations, all of which killed.This disease makes it so you can't breathe, you the the fun of slowly drowning. Fever is always fun too.That fever is important, and may make a huge difference in fighting this disease. By installing thermal imagers in airports, security can find whether or not someone is sick.Finally, my thoughts on the subject:This thing is risky. It's viral, so our medical system has a difficult time with it. Viruses are much harder ot beat. It likes healthcare workers, meaning that sooner or later, the health-care industry will decide that if you have this disease, you can just lay out in the parking lot and die.It survives for a nearly ludricous time outside of a host body. That mean Johnny Infected comes in, takes a leak, flushes the urinal, washes his hands, dries his hands with the air drier, and leaves.Now you come in 2 hours later.The handle of the urinal, the faucets, and the button on the air dryer could all possibly be contimated.What changes should this have in your life, once it does (and it will) spread the United States in large numbers?Well, you can like many people here have advised, and figure your more than likely going to be attacked by killer monkeys riding on the backs of Leather Goddesses, or you can be serious.1. Don't let idiots cough on you.2. Don't lick the table at the resturaunt and fast food joint.3. Use paper towels to turn on faucets or flush the plumbing in public restrooms.4. If your waiter is sick, refuse to eat the food. SARS or not, having a sick waiter is a danger to public health5. Wash your hands and you body. Good personal hygiene is very important to avoiding this.Things to remember that can cause problems:1. Saying: "I don't have to worry, it has a better chance of the sun rising in the North tommorrow than I do of catching this." That's not only stupid, but carelessness and apathy spreads disease and war both.2. Thinking you know better than health professionals and going into a quarantined area, figuring you know better. You don't.3. Comparing this to current or previous diseases is like comparing a Model-T Ford to today's cars. Back then, everyone had one. Nowdays, nobody does. Medicines and a constant pogram of elimination have reduced many diseases to a mere shadow of once they once were.4. Don't go in to the hospital or clinic everytime you sneeze and have a sore throat. If your that worried about it, look up the symptoms and be aware of those. Panic every time you sneeze will overburden the health-care system, leading to inevitable collapse of the health care industry.5. Rioting and looting won't get you medicines any faster, and just tear up the supporting services you need.Now-My thoughts:This thing is dangerous. It is highly infectous, does not respond well to any current treatments, and is still spreading. That makes it dangerous. This disease, unless it mutates it's way into a never-neverland vector, will be here to stay, and will probably kill a couple hundred every year.It would have made a hell of a bioweaponIf people continue to flaunt warnings, ignore travel advisories, and state that: "It's just a type of flu, it's not dangerous" then it will quickly become dangerous.We've been pushing the envelope on a global epidemic for about 30 years, with rapid and cheap air transport. AIDS is a world-wide epidemic, but it can be controlled. That's because nobody dies from AIDS, they die of complications due to AIDS.Imagine what is going to happen when this disease hits a country with a high (20% or more of the population) AIDS rate. That's a massive sector of the population with a badly damaged immune system. Massive casualties.Then, if estimates that place this diseases fatality rate between 20-90% are right, think about this.Go downtown. Count 10 people. At 20%, 2 of those people are dead. Count another 10 (It doesn't matter if you catch someone that you already count, just pretend they've been exposed again), now 2 of those people are dead.Ehhh, nevermind.I sincerely doubt that anything I could post here would change anyone's opinion one way or another.</blockquote>

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