How MERS could topple the House of Saud, and beyond

How MERS could topple the House of Saud, and beyond. HT: Croft.

The Tyee has published my article How MERS Could Topple the House of Saud, and Beyond. Excerpt:

Statistically, the bug now known as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a trivial threat. In the two years we've known about it, the World Health Organization has officially recognized just 635 cases of MERS, with 193 deaths. All appear to have originated in the Middle East, chiefly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. 

By comparison, Saudi Arabia suffered 6,596 traffic fatalities in 2010, and about 20 per cent of the people in the Persian Gulf region suffer from diabetes. 

But look again at those MERS deaths: a 30 per cent case fatality rate, where SARS had a rate of eight per cent. A disease that deadly will get attention, especially when it comes from a previously unknown virus and it flourishes in hospitals. 

The Gulf monarchies also have political reasons to fear MERS, and Saudi Arabia just announced that it's been fudging the case numbers for a year -- a confession likely to have major repercussions.Read the full story here.