One of my biggest fears in running a healthcare facility is a fast moving virus. Around ten years ago I was working in a facility in Iowa, where the the week after Christmas we wre hit with a respiratory virus. We lost 13 patients in 10 days.

Patients that were up, walking an talking in the morning, had raging fevers of over 104 and difficulty breathing by bedtime. The ones most severely stricken were dead within 48 hours. The healthier patients and staff were just down and out...quickly. No investigators were sent in even though the hospitals in our communities were over run. No one ever knew what virus the community was dealing with.

So when I read this article this morning about a nursing home hit with a virus in Vancouver I get this nauseated feeling.

Two-thirds of the patients, and one-third of the staff was hit. The virus is genetically identical to the SARs virus. The article is a little unclear of the deaths, they mention 7 dead in "recent weeks". It's easy to see they are being very careful of what is being released. Yes, seven deaths in few weeks is alot. My facility doesn't lose that many to respiratory infections in two years. A WHO investigator has been called in but it could take weeks to find the answers.

Keep your fingers crossed, that this just fades away...and SARs is actually a thing of the past. I'll take a 2 day power outage anytime over this.