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When SARS Ended
When SARS Ended The viral spell broke, and Hong Kong seemed to wake from a fever dream. By Karl Taro Greenfeld. April 17, 2020 In the spring of 2003, my family and I were living in Hong Kong, in a colonial-era flat near Victoria Peak, the mountain that dominates the city’s skyline. The previous year, just to the north, a coronavirus had emerged that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, or sars. The virus, called sars-CoV, had jumped the species barrier in a market, travelling from bats to civets to people. Its mortality rate was around ten per cent. Initially, the Chinese government covered up the epidemic, threatening and silencing the physicians who issued warnings. Then, as the infection spread, it imposed a drastic crackdown on all social interaction. The national May Day holiday, when hundreds of millions of people travel around the country on vacation, was cancelled, and the Rolling Stones called off their concerts. Hong Kongers enacted social isolation ev...
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