She’s one of Toronto’s great heroes.

Nearly every day during the height of the SARS outbreak in 2003, Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto’s then medical officer of health, led a news conference that told the city what was being done and what people could do.

It was broadcast on multiple channels and it was not uncommon to find people gathered around TV screens in public watching, as if it was the moon landing, though the collective interest was motivated by fear rather than wonder.

One thing people could do themselves was not panic, and Basrur was the epitome of fact-based calm. She was the one who kept Toronto together during an extremely difficult time.

The effects of SARS on the city can’t be underestimated, and went well beyond the emergency measures at area hospitals. Retail was hurt. Tourism dried up. Hot Docs, the documentary film festival, had to scramble to fill places on discussion panels because people opted not to make the journey to Toronto.

The World Health Organization even issued a non-essential travel warning for Toronto, prompting one of then-mayor Mel Lastman’s infamous quotes. “Who is the WHO?” he said on CNN. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know who this group is. I never heard of them before. I’d never seen them before.”

There was additional fallout. A 2004 report titled “Yellow Peril Revisited: Impact of SARS on the Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadian Communities” by researcher Carrianne Leung looked at the “social crisis” that came along with the health crisis. This included alienation, discrimination and harassment of Chinese and Asian Canadians as well as economic impacts on their businesses and job prospects. The crisis also “took a mental, psychological and emotional toll on members of these communities.”

Sadly, history seems to be repeating itself with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Basrur would go on to be chief medical officer for Ontario but died in 2008 at age 51 from cancer. There ought to be a major memorial for her in this city. Right now, a tree planted near the northeast corner of Queen’s Park Crescent and Grosvenor Street has a small plaque dedicated to her, but I’d donate money for a fitting, bigger and more prominent memorial.

It wouldn’t just represent her calm heroism, but also the role public health has in our lives. Lastman wasn’t the only one who overlooked it as it’s one of those municipal functions that most people don’t notice until they need it, but one that’s been indispensable to how cities have developed and has often been the reason for massive infrastructure projects, especially around water and sewage treatment.

In Toronto, the beautiful art deco R.C. Harris “Palace of Purification” water filtration plant near the eastern end of Queen Street is one such monument to public health. Harris was Toronto’s public works commissioner for 33 years until his death in 1945 and, along with the plant, he built other grand structures such as the Prince Edward Viaduct. In 2006, after deeply researching Harris’s life, Toronto writer John Lorinc found that the 1906 death of his six-month-old son, Emerson, from the water-borne infection erysipelas turned him into a public health champion.

Young Emerson was just one “statistic in a public health catastrophe afflicting the city’s residents.” Lorinc noted that in 1910 Toronto’s infant mortality was a “staggering” 140 deaths per thousand live births, an “indictment of the city’s failure to provide sanitary conditions for its residents.” The task of cleaning up Toronto’s water supply became the defining work of his career, a passion that convinced, though not without enormous effort, a city council as parsimonious then as it is now to invest in proper public works.

As with Harris’s long struggle, the advocate for public health isn’t always listened to at the time. Recall in 2012 when former medical officer of health Dr. David McKeown suggested a reduction of speed limits to save lives. Then-mayor Rob Ford said it was “nuts nuts nuts” and he and brother Doug said his salary was “an embarrassment” on their radio program. Since then, council and even the current mayor have moved to lower limits.

Indeed, the very design of the city can contribute to the overall health of its residents, as detailed in a new book, “Fit Cities” by Edmonton doctor Karen Lee. As a “health detective” she investigated how urban design contributes to obesity, heart disease, strokes, cancers, diabetes and premature death, and how “active design” that encourages walking and healthy eating can mitigate these problems.

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If there is any blessing that came with SARS it’s that this city is exceptionally well-prepared for outbreaks like the coronavirus.

The current response is just the tip of a public health iceberg though, a service that sometimes deserves memorials, but also deserves more public attention during calmer times.

Shawn Micallef is a Toronto-based writer and a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @shawnmicallef