The Lessons We Should Have Learned From The 2003 SARS Outbreak

Published May 21, 2020 at 9:00 AM CDT

Patients put on face masks as they leave the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) clinic setup at Sunnybrook & Women's hospital in Toronto, Canada, on 31 March, 2003. (J.P. MOCZULSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

17 years ago, the world was facing a different mysterious, viral respiratory disease. Dr. Ali Khan tells us what we should have learned from SARS.

Guests

Dr. Ali Khan, professor of epidemiology and dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Author of “ The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind’s Gravest Dangers.” ( @UNMC_DrKhan)

From The Reading List

New Yorker: “ Why Weren’t We Ready for the Coronavirus?” — “In 2006, the idea that an unknown virus might spill out of some wild animal into humans, achieving person-to-person transmission and causing a global pandemic, seemed a distant prospect to most people. As an engaging science-fiction scare, it ranked somewhere beneath ‘Alien: Resurrection.’ But Ali S. Khan, of the National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases, was tasked with dreaming that nightmare by daylight.”

NPR: “ Former CDC Official Warns Of 2nd COVID-19 Wave: Most Americans Are Still Susceptible” — “Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., officials have been warning about the prospect of a second wave. Some even say additional COVID-19 spikes in the country could be worse than the first wave.”

KCUR: “ U.S. ‘Healthcare System Was Not Ready’ For COVID-19, Says A Former CDC Official” — “The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response evaluated the U.S. response to an pandemic he said was only a matter of time.”

NPR: “ More Americans Are Getting Tested, But Experts Warn Of Second Wave” — “Turns out, it’s not disbanding. But the White House coronavirus task force, the president says, is going to shift focus to reopening.”

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.