Tucked away in a park here, near a spiraling observation tower and an
aviary teeming with exotic birds, is a monument of thin white pillars,
metal and glass. Beneath the memorial’s canopy, eight bronze busts sit
on square concrete podiums. The faces, forward looking, gazes fixed and
lips drawn in the slightest of smiles, are those of medical workers who
died battling the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
The illness, which first appeared in Hong Kong in February 2003, would
spread to some 1,700 people in the city and kill 299, including the
nurses, doctors, and hospital workers whose lives have been commemorated
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One of the busts is of Tse Yuen-man, a doctor who volunteered to
treat patients who had fallen ill with the disease. By April, Tse was
herself sick. She died the next month, aged 35, becoming the first
public-hospital doctor to die of SARS. Tse was buried in Gallant Garden,
a cemetery for members of the civil service, alongside police officers
and firefighters who died in the line of duty. On top of that rare
honor, she was awarded Hong Kong’s Gold Medal for Bravery. The citation
reads like the retelling of a soldier’s actions in battle: “By
voluntarily putting her own life in extreme danger in order to save
others, Dr Tse displayed noble gallantry of the highest order in
carrying out her last duties.” The monument opened two years after her
death. On a recent visit, office workers on their lunch break chatted
through face masks, and green signs hung in the park, carrying the
government’s slogan for countering the new pandemic, “Together, We Fight
the Virus!”
A health crisis similar to the one now playing out globally has
unfolded in few places in recent memory, and the imprint SARS has left
on this city speaks to the legacy the novel coronavirus may well leave
on much of the world. The experience of SARS traumatized Hong Kong, and
the memories have endured in the territory’s collective consciousness.
The doctors who helped combat the virus are widely known, tales of
sacrifice by medical workers are often repeated, and the city’s ability
to rebound once the virus subsided is frequently invoked by leaders to
show its resilience and spirit. The experience also brought about a rise
in public-health awareness and a sense of civic responsibility toward
preventing illness, as well as an increased investment in health care
and research, factors that seem to have helped effectively contain the
outbreak of the novel coronavirus here. When news emerged of a mystery
outbreak in mainland China, Hong Kong residents, almost out of instinct,
began taking measures that health experts credit with helping stave off
the explosion of infections seen elsewhere. The government, after
initial stumbles, enacted a series of regulations to slow the spread and
leaned on experts, many of whom came to prominence in 2003, to assist
with the new crisis.
The SARS outbreak is “remembered vividly” by people who lived
through it and “in no place is this more true than in Hong Kong,” says
Keiji Fukuda, the director of the University of Hong Kong’s School of
Public Health, who previously held top positions at the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. “While in many places, the general public tends to regard
outbreaks, more or less, like a television fantasy or brief news item,”
he told me, “in Hong Kong, the public take outbreaks, and
recommendations about what to do, seriously.”
Well before the emergence of the coronavirus, surgical masks have
been a common sight on the city’s subways and buses, as people suffering
from even a mild cough or sniffles wore them as a precaution against
infecting others. Small signs on elevator panels and doors indicate how
often they are disinfected. Hospitals maintain separate waiting areas
for those experiencing flu-like symptoms. Using a tissue or pen to press
an elevator button would hardly garner a quizzical look. News of
disease outbreaks in China, and Asia more broadly, receive considerable
news coverage. These measures that permeate everyday life are largely
linked to the lasting memory of SARS. The outbreak “facilitated the
development of public health at the institutional level, but it has also
enabled the Hong Kong population to become aware of the importance of
personal hygiene and infection prevention at the community level,” Judy
Yuen-man Siu, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University’s Department of Applied Social Science, observed in a 2016
paper examining the widespread adoption of face masks during the crisis.
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