History, My History

The Deadly Disease

About eight years ago, a disease, which was identified as a global health threat, broke out in Guangdong province of China. It killed hundreds of people, but there was no way of curing this disease at that time. It was SARS, which stands for “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome”. During the outbreak, I was living in Guangzhou, which is the central city of Guangdong province. SARS was spreading rapidly by air which means anybody could be infected from just talking to someone with the SARS virus. However, people did not realize the seriousness of SARS because they just seemed to have a common cold in the first stage. By the time people noticed that SARS was caused by a variant of a deadly virus, so many people had already died from the disease. SARS, which happened in my hometown, was the most serious disaster I have ever experienced, and it affected my parents and me in different ways.

First of all, in spring 2003, my school life changed during this horrible outbreak. After the first person with the SARS infection was confirmed to have died, and there was no medication to cure SARS, everyone was scared of this disease. Since SARS spreads very quickly by person to person contact, the government had to take action to control the epidemic as soon as possible. Of course, all schools were closed because children were very easily infected. The government suggested that all the kids should stay at home. For me, even though I was so happy that school was closed, I wasn’t allowed to play outside with my friends. Fortunately for me, both my parents needed to work, so I thought I could go out without their noticing. I did go outside several times, but I finally got caught by my parents. I still remember that they were very angry, and they punished me very seriously so that I did not dare to escape again. As time passed, about two weeks later, schools were reopened, and I had to go back to class. Nevertheless, people were still very alert. There were nurses and doctors at school who measured students’ body temperature every day. All students were required to wear masks. I hated the mask because it made me uncomfortable. Since it was closed to summer, the weather was too hot to breathe easily in the mask.

In addition to school life, SARS also affected my family’s lifestyle. The reason why people from all over the world were shocked by SARS was that many people with SARS infections traveled to many other countries. As a result, many people got infections even though they were living far away from China. Before the outbreak, I remember my parents had promised me that they would bring me to Hong Kong for summer break. On account of the disease, our travel plans were canceled since Hong Kong was one of the cities with a serious outbreak. To be honest, I was struggling with the decision and was trying to change my parents’ minds. Unfortunately, I failed at that. Instead, I stayed at home during the summer and rarely went out. Moreover, because of SARS, my family’s eating style changed. As a matter of fact, the SARS virus first was only contained in a specific type of wild animal. At the beginning, people were infected with SARS from eating those types of wild animals. After the outbreak, the government suggested that not buying or eating the wild animals was a good way to prevent the spread of SARS. Therefore, my parents did not only avoid eating out, but they also cooked everything very thoroughly, even now.

Certainly, SARS also had a great impact on my parent’ business. Since people got the disease originally from animal meat, the food industry was greatly affected. At that time, people stopped buying foods outside or going out to eat. Therefore, my parents had a hard time running a food factory which produced processed foods. Under the influence of SARS, the sales volume of my parents’ factory was greatly decreased, at one point even to zero. Because SARS came very fast, my parents did not quite evaluate the effects of the disease immediately. In fact, the factory had produced too much, but they could not sell the products. Therefore, the processed foods rotted very easily, and that made my parents lose a lot of money. Finally, they decided to close the factory for two months because continuing to produce was costing a lot of money, and they had no way of selling what they already had. Even after the outbreak, the effects still existed because people were scared of the unsafe food products. The impact of SARS continued to affect my parents’ business for future years.

SARS, which is the most fearful disease, affected my family’ life when I was young. However, I appreciate that my family was so lucky that we were not infected by the deadly virus, and the disease was extremely infectious in those days. I admit that I was less alert, and I did not realize the seriousness of the event. At that time, I complained that my parents did not let me play outside. I also sighed when I had to take the troublesome body check at school, and I was so displeased with the mask which I had to wear every day. Honestly, SARS affected life, but it let me learn that I really should listen to the elders. Fortunately, my parents stopped me going out and kept me safe. Due to SARS, even though my parents do not like to eat out now, I think it is actually not a bad thing because then we can eat healthily if we only cook at home. The financial problem is a history for my parents because they are all in the U.S. now. Although SARS made my parents lost a lot of money, they learned from it and figured out a better way to manage the effects. I think it was a valuable experience that can help them forever.