February 2020 started like any other month. Our small surgical practice was heading into its twelfth February since opening in the spring of 2008 amidst the worst economic downturn in recent history. Although 2020 was already promising new challenges, vague media stories about a new, or “novel,” virus in China was strange enough to be interesting, but subtle enough to suggest our small southern community in Charleston, South Carolina, had nothing to fear.