SARS(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) has become the most serious and dangerous disease in this past 6 months or so. It was first found in China. When one Cantonese professor went to treat an outbreak of disease in the southern Guandong, unknown virus there infected him without knowing anything. After the treatment, he stayed in a hotel, and then passed it on to more people. That is the beginning of how this disease started to spread all over the world. It spread to a lot of people quickly. Travelers carried this virus around the world. They spread it to many places in Asia, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, North America and Toronto. As of July 11, WHO(World Health Organization) reported that 8,437 people had been infected and 813 had died.
As time passes by, SARS became more serious and dangerous, which really scared a lot of people. WHO started to investigate the cause for this disease and whether they were capable of finding treatment for it.
I was planning to go to Taiwan to learn Chinese for two months during this past summer. Taiwan was one of the places in Asia that WHO had originally recognized as a safe place. Although, I was a little bit worried about this disease since it had spread to many places in China and Hong Kong. Taiwan was really close to those places. Unfortunately, soon this virus had spread to Taiwan. But I wasn’t really aware of how dangerous this disease could be at that point. My parents were very worried and gave me a call and informed me about this virus spreading to Taiwan. They suggested that I should reconsider going to study in Taiwan.
My girlfriend is from Taiwan. So I asked her to ask her parents what the situation Taiwan was like. I wanted to make sure whether or not it is good time to go to Taiwan. Her parents said it was still safe to come and study. But my parents were very worried about me going. Despite of what my girlfriend’s parents said, I cancelled my flight to go to Taiwan. Right after that, the situation got worse and worse, more and more people got infected in Taiwan. Now I am glad that I didn’t go. In addition to that, I didn’t want to make my parents worry during my stay in Taiwan, more importantly I did not get infected.
According to the WHO’s estimate as many as 15% of the people who got infected were killed by the SARS virus, and half of the people who are over 60 died.
I have heard from my friend who is a travel agent. Since they found the SARS virus, no one really wanted to travel. They have not had many customers at all, which has caused a deficit for a lot of companies.
Researchers are still looking for a treatment to cure this disease. However, they still have not found any. It is seems to be safer than it used to be, though. I don’t hear much about SARS now. I hope one day they find a treatment so that we can live safely.
(
posted for Yuantian by CH)
