A Cluster of 17 Cases
On the night of 21 February 2003, a 64-year-old doctor from Guangdong, China checked into Room 911 of Hong Kong’s Metropole Hotel to attend a family wedding. That night he infected 16 people on the same floor of the hotel. As they checked out, the guests took Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) across the world.
In this interactive exhibit, we virtually entered the Metropole Hotel on that fateful night, and explored the events that took place in the 17 rooms where the first cluster of SARS cases were detected. We embarked upon a journey with epidemiologists to understand how they studied the movements of the guests between each room. This experience revealed how even the most banal action, like touching a handrail, could have unforeseen consequences. In the end, we came away with a renewed appreciation for how public health experts grapple with fear and uncertainty in the face of an unknown disease.
About the Artist Group
The Wellcome Library is a major repository for the study of medical history. The Library was founded on the collections of Henry Solomon Wellcome (1853-1936), originally a pharmaceutical salesman whose interest in the history of medicine led him to collect books and create a Library as well as a Museum. Though he envisaged the library to be accessible to the public, it was only many years after his death that the collection was formally opened to the public as the Wellcome Historical Medical Library. Today, the Wellcome Library is focused on making these resources available by digitising large parts of its growing collection of manuscripts, videos, images, paintings, and much more.
