Baseball Guru
04-23-2003, 04:27 PM
By HAL BOCK, Associated Press Writer
April 23, 2003
NEW YORK (AP) -- Major league baseball plans to recommend that its teams visiting Toronto take precautions against SARS, such as refraining from signing autographs and not mingling with large crowds.
The 10 teams visiting Toronto through the All-Star break in mid-July also will be advised against visiting hospitals and using public transportation.
Elliot Pellman, baseball's newly hired medical adviser, will hold conference calls Thursday and Monday with the teams to provide information and take questions about severe acute respiratory syndrome.
The Toronto Blue Jays open a nine-game homestand Friday, beginning with the Kansas City Royals.
Baseball spokesman Rich Levin said Pellman would make the calls ``to settle people down'' about SARS.
``He wants to bring people up to speed and to assuage their fears,'' Levin said. Word that baseball was taking precautions was first reported by The Washington Post.
There were no plans to postpone the games in Toronto, said Blue Jays vice president Howard Starkman, who noted that the Air Canada Center was filled for the Maple Leafs' playoff game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
``I don't think it's any different going to a ball game than going to a shopping center,'' Starkman said.
Baseball did call off a season-opening trip by the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics to Tokyo when war broke out in Iraq. Players had expressed concern about overseas travel at that time.
The Toronto Star quoted Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey as saying that there have been cancellations of bus charters from the United States because of SARS.
Starkman said the Blue Jays' players were not being advised to avoid signing autographs.
``No, not at all. We're not saying not to sign autographs,'' he said.
The World Health Organization has advised that people should postpone unnecessary travel to Toronto because of SARS. At least 14 people have died there.
It was the global health agency's latest move to stem the worldwide spread of SARS.
Dr. Donald Low, chief microbiologist at the city's Mount Sinai Hospital, called the WHO warning ``inappropriate.''
``The impact on the city ... you won't be able to take this mark off,'' Low said.
The news also was met with dread by Toronto's business community, already reeling from the financial repercussions of the SARS outbreak.
Rick Naylor, head of Accucom, a company that organizes trade shows to Toronto, predicted the WHO warning will be devastating.
``The ripple effect is huge because the hotel industry, the restaurant industry, sporting events -- everything filters out of that,'' Naylor told a Toronto radio station. ``The economic impact is huge -- it's not just the conventions, it's the offshoot businesses that are affected.''
The WHO on Wednesday also advised against unnecessary travel to Beijing and China's Shanxi province. The organization previously warned against such travel to Hong Kong and the Chinese province of Guangdong.
Those areas have been singled out because ``these areas now have quite a high magnitude of disease, a great risk of transmission locally -- outside of the usual health workers -- and also they've been exporting cases to other countries,'' said Dr. David Heymann, WHO's communicable diseases chief.
The travel warning will be active for at least three weeks -- double the maximum incubation period for SARS, Heymann said.
Toronto, the first place outside Asia that the disease was detected, has always been a special concern to health officials because of its continued spread in the community despite tough measures.
Toronto has reported 136 SARS cases, while Beijing has reported 482 cases. In Shanxi, just to the west of Beijing, 120 people have been reported ill.
SARS has sickened more than 4,000 people worldwide and killed at least 251.
April 23, 2003
NEW YORK (AP) -- Major league baseball plans to recommend that its teams visiting Toronto take precautions against SARS, such as refraining from signing autographs and not mingling with large crowds.
The 10 teams visiting Toronto through the All-Star break in mid-July also will be advised against visiting hospitals and using public transportation.
Elliot Pellman, baseball's newly hired medical adviser, will hold conference calls Thursday and Monday with the teams to provide information and take questions about severe acute respiratory syndrome.
The Toronto Blue Jays open a nine-game homestand Friday, beginning with the Kansas City Royals.
Baseball spokesman Rich Levin said Pellman would make the calls ``to settle people down'' about SARS.
``He wants to bring people up to speed and to assuage their fears,'' Levin said. Word that baseball was taking precautions was first reported by The Washington Post.
There were no plans to postpone the games in Toronto, said Blue Jays vice president Howard Starkman, who noted that the Air Canada Center was filled for the Maple Leafs' playoff game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
``I don't think it's any different going to a ball game than going to a shopping center,'' Starkman said.
Baseball did call off a season-opening trip by the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics to Tokyo when war broke out in Iraq. Players had expressed concern about overseas travel at that time.
The Toronto Star quoted Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey as saying that there have been cancellations of bus charters from the United States because of SARS.
Starkman said the Blue Jays' players were not being advised to avoid signing autographs.
``No, not at all. We're not saying not to sign autographs,'' he said.
The World Health Organization has advised that people should postpone unnecessary travel to Toronto because of SARS. At least 14 people have died there.
It was the global health agency's latest move to stem the worldwide spread of SARS.
Dr. Donald Low, chief microbiologist at the city's Mount Sinai Hospital, called the WHO warning ``inappropriate.''
``The impact on the city ... you won't be able to take this mark off,'' Low said.
The news also was met with dread by Toronto's business community, already reeling from the financial repercussions of the SARS outbreak.
Rick Naylor, head of Accucom, a company that organizes trade shows to Toronto, predicted the WHO warning will be devastating.
``The ripple effect is huge because the hotel industry, the restaurant industry, sporting events -- everything filters out of that,'' Naylor told a Toronto radio station. ``The economic impact is huge -- it's not just the conventions, it's the offshoot businesses that are affected.''
The WHO on Wednesday also advised against unnecessary travel to Beijing and China's Shanxi province. The organization previously warned against such travel to Hong Kong and the Chinese province of Guangdong.
Those areas have been singled out because ``these areas now have quite a high magnitude of disease, a great risk of transmission locally -- outside of the usual health workers -- and also they've been exporting cases to other countries,'' said Dr. David Heymann, WHO's communicable diseases chief.
The travel warning will be active for at least three weeks -- double the maximum incubation period for SARS, Heymann said.
Toronto, the first place outside Asia that the disease was detected, has always been a special concern to health officials because of its continued spread in the community despite tough measures.
Toronto has reported 136 SARS cases, while Beijing has reported 482 cases. In Shanxi, just to the west of Beijing, 120 people have been reported ill.
SARS has sickened more than 4,000 people worldwide and killed at least 251.