The Emerald Virus

by Patrick Shea

  “Each of you will have ten minutes for progress reports. Jody and Jim, I’ll want your report at ten minutes past eleven.

  “Sandy and Gene, I’ll see you at twenty minutes past eleven; Sharon and Ron I’ll see you at eleven thirty; Susan I want you and two of your team leads to join me at eleven o’clock for Harry’s phone call and for the progress reports. At eleven forty you and your team and I will discuss other areas in need of attention. Irene, please send an email to everyone in the room with the schedule. After you send the email check back with me, then plan on joining Susan and her team.

  “Use whatever conference rooms or empty offices you can find, work quickly but work quietly. I don’t want to start a panic.

  “I’ve done all of the talking to this point. Let’s take a minute for any questions or comments from anyone in the group.”

  When no one said a thing Jack said, “I’ll see you back here at eleven”.

  Chapter Three: Action

  Friday, Washington D.C. (Real Time)

  Seventy-two hours later Jack was thinking about the nightmare that had been his last three days. The efforts of his teams had been well received, but he wasn’t sure they could make a substantial difference to the country. He did know that they would give everything they could to the effort, but he also knew that he was going to be challenged to keep his team together once the virus hit DC area, and it would be here soon. He would have to face that issue as the different scenarios played out.

  Jack knew he would continue to work through the crisis. He was single and had no family left. He was an only child, born late to parents who had both died of natural causes over five years ago. He couldn’t picture doing anything but working, especially if the virus arrived in DC unchecked.

  He had spent the past minutes thinking about Tuesday’s briefing with Secretary Kemper, who had accepted almost all of the recommendations made by the team. Jack knew this was because Secretary Kemper recognized that his own strengths were his knowledge of politics and the confidence of the President, and there was nothing from the political arena that would help if the virus remained unchecked.

  Jack was excited that the Secretary and the President had agreed that Jack’s team would be responsible for communication with the general public about any actions the public should or shouldn’t take. CDC in Atlanta would be responsible for daily press releases concerning the virus itself and progress made towards finding a vaccine. Jack’s team would provide pertinent information to those who were affected by the virus and those who were not.

  Since Tuesday Jack and Harry talked often and Jack was aware that more survivors had been found. To this point no progress had been made toward finding why there were any survivors at all. More and more active cases of the Emerald Virus were reported and there were now so many that record keeping was going to be almost impossible. Jack was concerned that Edinburgh itself was about to reach epidemic proportions and that Harry would be lost.

  Jack looked up, realizing that his team leaders had joined him for the morning meeting and said, “Good morning, I hope all of you slept well last night. I know you’ve been working long hours and that sleep is at a premium, but I want all of you to remember that you have families to support and your own health to take care of. You all know what’s at stake and you are all capable of using your own judgment. If you have to go home to put your kids to bed then do so. If you want to come in at four in the morning instead of working into the wee hours then do so. Make your own decisions but do what you can to make sure you take care of yourselves.”

  Jack wasn’t sure his message was going to do any good. He knew that most of the people in the room, including himself, had spent one or two of the last three nights in the office. Jack had been home once since the phone call on Tuesday. He had slept for a couple of hours, showered and shaved, and then packed a bag for the office. He knew he could shower in the basement gym and continue to sleep on the sofa in Dr. McCloud’s office. He also knew that going home to an empty apartment wasn’t going to do him any good.

  A. J. McCloud entered the conference room and took the first available seat just as Jack said, “Jody, let everyone know where you are on the border issue.”

  She listened as Jody said, “As you know, Secretary Kemper raised the issue of closing the borders with the President. The President would not make that call until he informed the public about the Emerald Virus. In his address to the nation Tuesday evening he mentioned that he was considering closing the borders. The reaction Wednesday was so negative that he decided to leave the borders open.”

  “His first reaction was to close the borders on Wednesday. But after listening to the negative reaction he was reminded that there were tens of thousands of American citizens and about 200,000 members of the uniformed services currently deployed or stationed outside of the U.S. None would be able to return home if the borders were closed. Additionally, there were hundreds of thousands of non-citizens currently in the U.S., many of whom would try to return to their home countries. Ultimately the President decided to keep the borders open for three reasons. The first was to avoid the panic that would result from closing the borders; the second was at the rate the Emerald Virus was spreading, closing the borders would at best be a very temporary bandage; and lastly, the President came to the conclusion that if the Emerald Virus is as bad as it appears to be, the he did not want to enact extraordinary measures to keep families apart during this crisis.”

  Jack said, “Thanks Jody. Unfortunately, airports around the world are a mess right now and I don’t think that’s going to improve. Many of the European airport employees, pilots and crew members have simply walked off the job. More will do so as their family members come down with the Emerald Virus. All forms of transportation will be similarly affected in the near term. In essence borders are being closed in part due to this dynamic.

  “Jody, how is your team coming with the bulletin that explains survivors to the public? Have you had time to talk to Harry? Jody replied, “I’ve had time to discuss this with Harry and to work with my team on the bulletin. I have a draft I’d like to share with you after the meeting. I’ve also been working with Jim on the statistical models you requested. Fortunately we have the basic models complete as of late last night.”

  “Thanks Jody, that’s good news. Jim, how is your statistical model working given the information we’ve received since Tuesday?”

  “As Jody said we have a good grip on the population model, particularly for the eastern third of the U.S. where the population is dense. It’s much more difficult to build a model for the Great Plains and the West. The population is so sparse outside of the metro areas that we can’t begin to guess which remote areas will be affected first and which will be affected later. As we get better and better data from Europe and Asia, and we learn more about air currents moving into and through western North America, we’ll be able to build a model that will give us an idea of how quickly the virus will spread to the remote areas. We simply aren’t ready for that yet.”

  A.J. McCloud interjected by saying “Jim, can you have a trial run of the model for the eastern third of the country ready later today?”

  “Sure, whenever you’re ready let me know and my team and I will walk you through it. As we get more and better data the margin of error will decrease, but we think the model itself is as solid as we can make it for the more densely populated areas. The only problem is the shock of seeing how quickly the Emerald Virus spreads, and how quickly it kills”.

  “Okay Jim, I’ll be ready for that shock at eleven o’clock in my office. Please join me there. Jack, I received your email with the first Emerald Virus bulletin attached. Have you released it?”

  “I sent it just before this meeting. I’ll let you know what feedback I get. And as soon as I go over the draft with Jody I’ll release the second bulletin. That should happen shortly after this meeting.”

  =============================================================

  Departme
nt of Homeland Security

  Emerald Virus Bulletin #1

  November 6

  Subject: Information Update

  Distribution: All Citizens

  Released by: Jack Sweeney,

  For: Dr. A.J. McCloud, Assistant Secretary of Health and Safety

  This is the first of a series of bulletins I will release to the general public in order to keep all residents informed, and to help those who survive the Emerald Virus prepare for the future.

  These bulletins assume that the scientific community will not discover a vaccine for use against the virus in time to save most of us. I believe this worst case scenario will help us best prepare for the future.

  Using the information we have we believe there will be survivors. We don’t know how many there will be but reports from Western Europe show a minimal number at best. As soon as we can make an estimate, we will publicize that number.

  While I don’t know how many of these bulletins will be issued, or how often, my intent for the near future is to release a bulletin at least every other day, and more often if need be.

  As many of you know, the virus is currently affecting Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England and the west coasts of Norway, Sweden, Belgian, France, Portugal and Spain and it is spreading rapidly. It appears that symptoms of the virus are visible after one week and the virus is fatal for 100% of those affected; those we refer to as survivors have not been affected by the virus at all. From the first symptom death takes 12 to 14 days. The young and the old die soonest.

  For now the best you can do is to remain calm. We don’t know where in the U.S. the Emerald Virus will first take root but it will probably happen in multiple places at once.

  The virus spreads through contact with people and animals infected with the virus and by wind currents which carry the virus. We believe that because the virus can be carried by the both wind and air currents that there is no location safe from the Emerald Virus. It will affect all of us and apparently it will happen quickly.

  A very small number of our leaders, including scientists looking for a vaccine to be used against the Emerald Virus, and members of the military, will be evacuated to bunkers in various locations around the country. Our political leaders will stay in touch with survivors and continue to provide all assistance possible.

  To that end we have established a web site for survivors of all countries to use in order to communicate and to share experiences following the initial period of devastation. This web site is www.TheEmeraldVirus.com. We are currently building chat capabilities for survivors and hope to add video capabilities in the near term that will allow survivors using laptops or computers with video cameras to have face-to- face discussions.

  End/Emerald Virus Bulletin #1

  =============================================================

  A.J. nodded and Jack continued.

  “Sandy, are you and Gene prepared to give an update on communication with the medical community, the business community and the public?”

  Sandy replied, “Yes we are. First, we haven’t spent much time with medical bulletins since CDC is covering communication about the virus itself. We have asked CDC for the electronic address list they use and we’ll be prepared to use the same list if and when we issue medical bulletins. Additionally we’ve set up a web site that all citizens can review. All bulletins will be posted on the web site. We’ve chosen a commercial web site rather than a government web site because we want citizens around the world to feel comfortable using this web site. We’ll start advertising the site today. We’ll send bulletins to all TV and radio stations in the country and ask them to help us get the word out. We would also like the TV and radio stations to read our bulletins to their listening audiences whenever we release one. We have asked all state and local governments to print the bulletins and make them available at all public sites, government offices, banks, filling stations and grocery stores. The web site will be simple and straightforward, and we have it working now.”

  Gene added, “We’re also creating a separate address group of all businesses that think they may be able to help and all citizens who think they can help. We’ll send all of our information to anyone who registers on these sites. I’m not sure we have enough staff to stay on top of whatever suggestions we’ll receive but I think we need to try.

  “We’re also going to need a method for survivors to be able to communicate. I’ve asked for help from the technical community and I’ve already received a couple of phone calls and emails from some high-tech firms offering assistance. I plan on having a conference call with these folks this afternoon.”

  Jack replied, “Good work guys. Jim, if you can spare any techies from your modeling project let Sandy and Gene know. It looks like they can use the help.”

  Sandy said, “Thanks Jack. For the record I’d like to acknowledge those who worked on ‘The Pandemic Influenza Preparedness, Response and Recovery Guide’. The Guide wasn’t created for this type of threat, but without it we would have taken a lot longer to get to this point.”

  “Thanks Sandy. Ron and Sharon, did you find anything new or useful in your search for the responsibilities of other agencies?”

  Ron answered, “No, we didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. We did receive promises of support from every agency we talked with and I think we should use these offers to staff the hotlines and email data banks that Gene mentioned. In fact, I’ve taken the liberty of turning the auditorium into a response center with one hundred computer stations and an additional one hundred phone lines. We’re in the process of transforming conference rooms throughout the city into additional response centers. Finding the equipment and staff to install these centers has actually been easy. I think by now everyone in the world understands that this project is the most important project in the city and is second only to the Centers for Disease Control’s project to find a vaccine. I don’t anticipate having any trouble creating the response centers or staffing them with qualified people.”

  “Thanks Ron, that’s a great initiative. I’d like you to join Gene and continue to build the teams needed to review incoming phone and email messages. You’ll need to start by defining criteria for the team to use when categorizing messages and the filtering devices required in getting the most pertinent and important messages to the top quickly. Let me know if you need any help or support from Dr. McCloud, Secretary Kemper or me.

  “Sharon do you have anything else?”

  “I don’t, but I‘d like to suggest that I join Jody’s team and work on the future bulletins. I was on the team that created ‘The National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza’ and I have some ideas on what needs to be done next. I’d also like to call in some of my teammates from that project to help. There was a lot of talent involved in creating the ‘strategy’.”

  “Good idea Sharon. Take the lead on bringing in others capable of assisting. Jody, you’ll retain the overall lead, which means you decide which bulletins are created and published first. I’ll be the final authority on the release.

  “If anyone has additional needs for information or staff please stay after the meeting and talk to me. I’d like everyone else to return to their teams. Any questions before we end the meeting?”

  A.J McCloud stood at this point and said, “I joined you this morning in part to talk to you about the near future. As you know I’ve been in close contact with the lab in Edinburgh, as well as with one of the labs in Ireland. As the Emerald Virus has spread we are learning more about survivors and about the rate at which the virus spreads. We are also learning a few other things. The most important is that at some point family members of people playing important roles in tracking and defining the actions of the Emerald Virus will begin to show symptoms. At that point many will decide it is more important to be with their families than to continue their work. That seems normal to me.”

  A.J. smiled a little as she looked around the room and saw some of the team, including Jack, frown or grimace at this ne
ws. She continued, “I’d like all of you to remember the circumstances in which these professionals are working. The virus is much closer to them than to us, and it is killing their friends and family as we speak.

  “At the rate the Emerald Virus is spreading we can expect the same thing to happen to us within a matter of days or, if we are really lucky, weeks.

  “If there were some place we thought would not be affected by the virus in the short term, I would help you go there. However, we don’t know of a single place where we can find safety from the virus. I don’t want any of you worrying about what to do with your families when the virus does arrive. You and you alone will know when the time is right for you to leave this project and to be with your families. The timing will be different for all of you. I want you to feel free to join your families when you decide to do so. Jack and I will support your decision whatever the circumstances. I do ask that you let us know when you depart for good. You can do that personally or by simply sending an email to Irene whom I’ve asked to track the various teams and their members.”

  A.J. added with a smile, “Some will be here until the end. You are welcome to join us for all or part of that time. Irene is taking charge of the logistics by bringing cots, food and water into the building. If we don’t get a handle on this virus, getting staples near the end could be difficult so we are starting now. If you have suggestions for Irene, please let her know. Jack, that’s all I have for the group.”

  “Thanks Doc, we all appreciate your support. Okay everyone thanks for coming. I’ll see you all in the afternoon meeting.”

  “Jody, let’s go over your draft bulletin. I’d like to release that this morning. Gene let’s have the conference call with your high-tech firms here in the conference room. I’d like to join you for that. Jim, if you have time please come.”