To think this is terrorism is silly...

The reason so many of the new flu strains come from asia is because you have a very dense population of people living in close proximity to livestock....
Human, pig, and even birds share, (remember the bird flue that made <hong kong?> kill al their poultry a few years back?) their viruses... the viruses mix and sometime come up with a mix that our antibodies are unprepared to take on.... so that is why we have to come out with a new flu vaccine every year....

Now in the case of SARS this has occurred with a cold virus, <assuming the identification is correct>

Last I heard it seemed to be less lethal in the West than it was in asia....3 possible reasons for this:
1) better health care over here
2) It resembles something more westerners have fought off than people in asia <birds over here were far more decimated by west nile virus than their african counterparts who had lived with it for Years>
3) it is mutating, and is not too stable....

I think it is a serious threat- looks like the worst new bug in decades...I do think it will be confined and dealt with soon...I dont think it will be a global pandemic like we saw in 1918- remember, we today actually understand what disease is, we have isolated it and identified it and we will have its genome mapped almost immediately...

If I turn out wrong, don't bother flaming me- we will have more unpleasant stuff to deal with than "I told you so!"