It looks like aggressive treatment of symptoms helps, but still a significant number of cases require artificial ventilation. Most hospitals don't have that many ventilators; they would be quickly overwhelmed if the number of cases was high.

Also, as I mentioned before, many countries don't have access to adequate health care at the best of times; SARS could be really devastating there, especially among a population already weakened by malnutrition, etc. I imagine SARS and AIDS together would make a terrible synergy.

Your point a about front-line health care workers being at greatest risk is very important. A nursing shortage during a medical crisis is a disaster, but at least if the disaster is an earthquake or plane crash or war, the nurses wouldn't be terrified of coming to work (well, they might be to a degree, but my point is that earthquakes aren't contagious).

A good, if rather nasty, investment right now might be a truckload of surgical masks. The demand is growing faster than the number of SARS cases.