WEBVTT

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On March 12, 2003, the World Health Organization issued a global alert.

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People here in Hong Kong were catching a form of pneumonia that did not respond to standard treatment.

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And three days later, the new disease was named SARS for the first time.

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We now know that it started in China, but by the time it was contained four months later, it had spread to more than two dozen countries.

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Now, SARS infected more than 8,000 people, 780 people died

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and Hong Kong had the highest fatality rate in the world.

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And the city still bears scars from SARS.

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I talked to the virus. I talked to the disease, "Go away. Go away."

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Cathy Kong is a SARS survivor.

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Ten years ago, she lived in Block E of the Amoy Gardens apartment complex, the area of Hong Kong hardest hit during the outbreak.

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Cathy and more than 300 of her neighbors became infected with SARS.

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I didn't know the situation is so severe, so scary,

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until the moment I was discharged from the hospital and when I came home I got out of the taxi, I took my first step to the Amoy Gardens shopping mall.

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Most of the shops were closed. It was dark, quite dark, in... not light in the shopping mall, not like its normal scene.

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In other parts of Hong Kong, usually crowded streets were deserted.

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People who did go out wore face masks, and they were in such high demand that even hospital workers fighting SARS had a hard time getting them.

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At the time we weren't really very well prepared, because we thought it was only going to be a small-scale outbreak.

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We didn't realize that there was an Amoy Garden[s] outbreak afterwards. So these masks were in very short supply at the time.

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Dr. C.M. Chu was, and still is, a respiratory specialist at United Christian Hospital.

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That's where many residents of Amoy Gardens went for treatment.

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But at first, Dr. Chu and his colleagues did not know what they were fighting.

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It was quite scary and we... all of us I think in the team feels a very huge responsibility,

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because we... eventually we had more than a hundred adult patients admitted under our care with SARS.

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You know, people tend to romanticize the whole experience, but in fact it's quite traumatic for everybody.

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And I don't feel like a hero. I mean, I was trained to deal with pneumonia and that was only my job.

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According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, SARS has not struck since 2004, but its legacy can still be seen in Hong Kong today.

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In the buildings around me, you will find signs with disinfecting schedules. You'll also find hand sanitizer dispensers.

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And when people get sick here in Hong Kong, they often wear face masks to avoid spreading it to others.

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Cathy says she is happy to see lessons have been learned.

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She says SARS survivors are still healing, some physically, others psychologically.

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I always tell myself it's OK. I'm recovered. The disease is over and the disaster is also over.

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I'm OK. I always tell myself I'm OK. I'm the lucky one.