Reporter’s Notebook: Coronavirus Sequel Has Drama, But Thankfully Lacks Mystery of the Original

What a difference 17 years makes. That’s the number of years that have passed since the SARS coronavirus emerged in China and went on to create a world health crisis like the one we’re seeing today centered in Wuhan.

I was a reporter working for the Reuters news agency in Hong Kong when the original SARS crisis of 2002-2003 erupted in South China’s Guangdong province, and spread from there to the rest of the world. People who remember that time may recall the disease actually first appeared in November 2002, but wasn’t properly acknowledged on the Chinese mainland until around five months later, in the following April.