In late 2002, doctors in southern China began noticing something unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patients were arriving with a mysterious pneumonia-like illness. They had high fevers, dry coughs, breathing difficulties, and rapidly worsening lung infections. Some healthcare workers treating the patients soon became sick themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At first, nobody fully understood what was happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within months, airplanes carried the illness across international borders. Hospitals in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, and Canada suddenly found themselves battling a fast-moving respiratory disease that seemed capable of overwhelming modern healthcare systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fear spread almost as quickly as the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People avoided public places.
Airports became tense and silent.
Masks appeared everywhere.
Entire hospitals went into lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world had entered the era of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome \u2014 better known as SARS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the outbreak was eventually contained, SARS permanently changed global public health. It exposed weaknesses in disease surveillance, revealed how quickly viruses could spread in a connected world, and served as an early warning about the pandemic risks posed by coronaviruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later, when COVID-19 emerged, many scientists immediately remembered SARS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because in many ways, SARS was the rehearsal the world barely understood at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n