Online, jetsetting and monitored: How life in China has changed since SARS

A passenger wearing a protective facemask as she arrives at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing on Feb 2, 2020. A virus similar to the SARS pathogen has killed more than 300 people in China and spread around the world since emerging in a market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. — AFP

BEIJING: A new coronavirus originating from central China has killed 259 people and infected thousands others, stirring memories of the SARS outbreak nearly two decades ago.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome – which also began in China – killed almost 800 people worldwide in 2002-03, with the Chinese government drawing condemnation for attempting to cover up the outbreak.