DEADLY VIRUS: Looking back at Toronto's SARS outbreak
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In the early days, it didn’t have a name and no one could say how it was spreading.
In February 2003, Toronto would come to know deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which would infect 438 patients and kill 44 people — most, including many health-care workers, were in southern Ontario.
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Across the globe, there would be 8,273 cases and 775 fatalities caused by the viral outbreak, which started in November 2002 and was traced to bats in China’s Yunnan province.
China’s communist government discouraged its press from reporting on SARS and delayed reporting the problem to the World Health Organization.
Patient zero for Toronto was a woman who booked in at the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong and was infected by a Chinese doctor treating suspected pneumonia patients.
Patient zero died at home in Toronto in March 2003 and her infected son went to Scarborough Grace Hospital, initiating the outbreak at health-care facilities.
After this first outbreak, medical authorities figured they’d beat the virus as Toronto had gone longer than the incubation period with no new patients. The World Health Organization lifted a travel advisory to the GTA that was issued on April 22.
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But, a month later, there was a second wave of SARS.
This time around, newsrooms — such as the one at the Toronto Sun — were inundated with callers from Western Canada who made threats, warning Ontario residents to stay away from their provinces. Foreign reporters from such places Australia and Britain called as they searched for tales of frightened, mask-wearing Toronto residents.
In reality, unless you were employed in or a patient at a hospital or a facility such as a nursing home, the disease didn’t affect the daily lives of Torontonians.
However, Toronto’s tourism and hospitality industry took a huge hit and the city lost several large conventions. Campaigns, including You Belong Here, were launched in the hope of attracting tourists to the city.
The first patient in the second outbreak was a 96-year-old man who had been in hospital for a fractured pelvis on March 22. After the second outbreak, infection control procedures were intensified.
On May 14, 2003, the WHO removed Toronto from the list of cities with SARS transmissions as 20 days had passed after the maximum incubation period.
The Ontario government has been criticized for its response to the outbreak. Members of Ontario’s SARS Scientific Advisory Committee said public health officials’ response to the crisis was basic and minimal at best.
There is no SARS vaccine.
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