QUESTION:
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world significantly in many different ways, and re-examining previous outbreaks could give us important clues about what may happen and how we can respond. The following is a question based on Shin-Yi Chou’s research on prenatal care visits during the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus outbreak in Taiwan. SARS is the first severe, readily-transmissible disease in the 21st century. It first appeared in China in November 2002 and resulted in more than 8,000 probable cases and nearly 800 deaths in more than 30 countries between 2002 and 2004. The figure above shows the average number of prenatal visits for mothers across Taiwan before, during and after the SARS outbreak.
The time scale in the figure above is hidden to allow you to think instinctively about the scope of the impact.
Following Taiwan’s removal from the World Health Organization list of SARS-affected areas, how long did it take for the average number of prenatal visits to return to the pre-SARS level? Choose the closest answer:
Think you know the answer?
You can win bragging rights—and some cool Lehigh swag. Submit your answer to bizquiz@lehigh.edu by Jan. 1, 2021. We’ll post the correct answer on lehigh.edu/lehighbusiness by Jan. 15, 2021. One winner will be randomly selected from all the correct submissions.
Our randomly selected winner from all our correct submissions from our 2019 issue was Joe Mallaney ’77. Congratulations!
