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And here's your shmoop du'jour brought to you by shaking hands a [Women shaking hands]

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tradition that falls very much by the wayside in any germaphobe convention

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alright well the SARS epidemic affected the political establishment in China why?

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and here are your potential answers.. Well SAR stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome

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and is caused by the coronavirus well the first outbreak was in Asia in 2003 [Asian citizens wearing mouth masks as they walk down a street]

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and since 2004 there have been no known cases reported meaning it's just biding

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its time waiting for the right moment to return and save Gotham or something like [Batman perched on top of a building]

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that well is the answer A did citizens rally behind political leaders despite the

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spread of disease yeah the Chinese government definitely did not have the

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support of their citizens official response to the epidemic was healthy [Chinese officials whistling]

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doses of both denial and deceit nothing wrong in or no idea what you're

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talking about not exactly the best rallying cry for earning the support of [Woman in a newsroom telling people theres nothing to worry about]

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your citizenry so definitely not A.. How about B? the failure to immediately take

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decisive action led to a reorganization of certain sectors of the bureaucracy

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well you kind of hope that this one was true and that the government would have [Man with his fingers crossed and another man sitting with two boxes labelled Out and In]

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made some changes in the aftermath of their failure you hope, but you'd be wrong

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they had sort of a if it's broke don't fix it philosophy yeah let's get rid of [Man stood beside a broken car holding a wrench]

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B what about D? Did the epidemic bring leadership closer to neighboring

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government good question your next-door neighbor clearly had SARS but kept

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denying it do you feel better about them what you want to get closer to them [Woman running away from a woman who has SARS]

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no oh weird well same deal with China in fact the SARS epidemic isolated Chinese

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officials who were blamed by neighboring governments for turning a regional

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outbreak into a global health crisis thanks to their slow response let's not [World leaders saluting China]

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be either could it be E? the epidemic exposed the failures of China's economic

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system well SARS didn't really expose failures per se what it did expose was

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the weaknesses of China's political culture which brings us to C.. The

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government's response damaged its credibility internationally and [Politicians confronted by Chinese citizens]

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threatened social stability in large part due to China's political culture

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and bureaucracy anywho option C it is blatantly lying to your populace is usually

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not a great move for any government which makes it so strange that we're [Builder stood between two traffic cones in the street and attacked by an alligator]

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letting our own government get away with claiming that there aren't

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any alligators in the New York City sewers

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