HIST4702 (2022-23) Digital History Project: SARS in Asia

Transmission of SARS

This is a pivotal issue in the study of the transmission of SARS. We hope to show the process and historical insight of transmission of SARS through different digital methods.

Impacts of SARS

The impact of SARS is reflected in all aspects of society. We hope to find the importance of the specific impact of this through text and data analysis, as well as interviews.

Responses to SARS

These responses are educational in how prevent or lessen the impact of the future pandemics. We hope to use diverse digital methods to analyse the subsequent impact of SARS and the response after.

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In mid-November, 2002, the first case of SARS, acronym for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, was first found in Guangdong. Within four months, the virus spread throughout the world, affecting neighboring countries like Vietnam and Singapore, and it even reached as far as Canada and the United States in North America. By the time of mid-March, the number of SARS-related cases increased drastically. But its transmission and fatality rates remained unknown at the beginning.

Although it was successfully contained from spreading further cases in less than four months[1], there are several questions we would like to ask: How infectious or mortal was this virus?  How did it spread? What were the socio-economic impacts of SARS in the affected areas? What were the official responses in these areas against the pandemic? This website aims to respond to these questions by various digital methods, while using Hong Kong as the primary example.