Virus Hunters 2: A Medical Thriller Read online

  Virus Hunters

  A Medical Thriller | Part Two

  Bobby Akart

  Contents

  Introduction

  Virus Hunters

  Foreword by Dr. Harper Randolph

  Real World News Excerpts

  Part I

  In politics, nothing happens by accident

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part II

  Who is Patient Zero?

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Part III

  Find the Truth

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Part IV

  Hiding in the Shadows

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Part V

  Follow Your Nose

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Virus Hunters Part 3

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author, Bobby Akart

  Other Works by Amazon Top 25 Author Bobby Akart

  Introduction

  Thank you for downloading VIRUS HUNTERS: Part Two of the Virus Hunters trilogy by Author Bobby Akart.

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  BobbyAkart.com

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  Virus Hunters

  A Medical Thriller | Part Two

  by

  Bobby Akart

  Foreword by Dr. Harper Randolph

  Spring 2020 - The year we discovered the SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 global pandemic.

  In the story of humanity, communicable diseases play a starring role. From the bubonic plague to cholera to HIV, we have been locked in a struggle for supremacy with deadly maladies for millennia. They attack our bodies with impunity and without prejudice. They’re a merciless enemy, just one-billionth our size, and they’ve existed on Earth longer than man.

  In 2020, we were a world under siege. In America, with the whole of the nation in the midst of a declared national state of emergency, most communities were ordered to abide by a mandated lockdown. Infections totaled over a million and deaths were recorded in the tens of thousands. The efforts to protect public health from this novel coronavirus was a striking example of this continuing war. As governments and health authorities battled to stop the spread of the new virus, they considered lessons from history.

  As epidemiologists, we strive to understand the exact effects and nature of any strain of virus, a relative of the common cold. Our greatest concern is accepting that this information can remain unknown for months as scientists gather evidence as to its origin, spread, and immunology.

  Experts are concerned about the speed at which the disease can mutate. Oftentimes, its presumed that animals may have been the original source—as was the case with severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, another virus in the same family as coronavirus—reflecting the proximity that millions in China share with livestock and wild animals.

  Once an outbreak occurs and is identified, governments must grapple with a response. Today’s strategy of containment—one of the key measures deployed against endemic diseases—would be familiar to civil authorities and medical personnel as far back as the ancient world. The concept of a quarantine has its roots in the Venetian Republic’s fourteenth-century efforts to keep out the plague by blocking boat travel.

  But the maritime power would have been hard-pressed to institute a cordon sanitaire on a scale required in China, where many of these infectious diseases originate. Using the early outbreak of COVID-19 by way of example, the ability to lock down the presumed place of origin, Wuhan, a city equal in size and population to the entirety of Los Angeles County, was a reflection of the power of China’s Communist-authoritarian rule. To stop the spread of the disease, every citizen of Wuhan was ordered to stay in their homes. No exceptions for essentials. No excuses to visit a friend. No walks in the park. No mowing of grass. It was a severe measure, strictly enforced.

  In 2020, mistrust and politics played a role as well. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has always been dedicated to identifying, containing, and eradicating diseases of all types. Too often, however, the CDC had become a political football, but not one handed off or passed from one side of the aisle to the other. Rather, the CDC was often punted, kicked, and fumbled as a result of never-ending budget battles or desires to use the agency’s efforts to exploit its findings for political gain.

  Misinformation and disinformation are also still prevalent, as they have been in the past. During the outbreak of Spanish flu in 1918–19, conspiracy theories of enemy bioweapons circulated. During an 1853 outbreak of yellow fever in New Orleans, immigrants were to blame. On social media during the COVID-19 pandemic, wild claims were circulating that the coronavirus was exacerbated by 5G cell phone towers. Fear and mistrust may be one of the greatest challenges we face in eliminating infectious diseases.

  Technological changes have proved to be a double-edged sword. Modern diagnostic techniques have sped up identification, while data science has made it easier to track the spread of a contagion. But some advances, such as improved modes of transportation, have contributed to the rapid proliferation of infectious diseases around the globe.

  Even global health cooperation has been less than straightforward. The conversation has far improved from 1851 when European nations sought to standardize maritime quarantines. Yet the World Health Organization, despite its message of worldwide solidarity and cooperation, continues to exclude Taiwan from key meetings and information sharing, under Chinese pressure. China, one of the most secretive nations on Earth, continues to closely guard information and delay announcements concerning outbreaks for economic and geopolitical reasons. Both of these examples are the kinds of unnecessary risks that create windows of opportunity for infectious diseases to proliferate. Frankly, pandemics and politics do not mix well.

  However, perspective is needed. SARS, a disease that spread worldwide within a few months in 2002, gripped the nation’s headlines, but killed fewer than 800. The perennial scourge of influenza concerns most pandemic watchers. An estimated fifty to one hundred million died from the Spanish flu during a time when commercial air, rail, and auto travel didn’t exist. Even with modern medicine, the CDC estimates an average of 34,000 Americans die from influenza each flu season.

  Outbreaks of unidentified diseases demand our vigilance and study. Novelty does not necessarily make them inherently more dangerous than older foes, only more difficult to esta
blish testing, treatment, and vaccination protocols.

  I will leave you with this. Deadly outbreaks of infectious diseases make headlines, but not at the start. Every pandemic begins small, subtle, and in faraway places. When it arrives, it spreads across oceans and continents, like the sweep of nightfall, killing millions, or possibly billions.

  Know this. Throughout the millennia, extinction has been the norm, and survival, the exception. This is why the Virus Hunters, the disease detectives on the front lines, work tirelessly to keep these deadly infectious diseases from killing us all.

  I am Dr. Harper Randolph and this is our story.

  Real World News Excerpts

  TIMELINE OF A PANDEMIC

  December 31, 2019

  MYSTERY PNEUMONIA INFECTS DOZENS IN CHINA’S WUHAN CITY

  ~ South China Morning Post

  January 13, 2020

  CHINA REPORTS FIRST DEATH FROM NEWLY IDENTIFIED VIRUS

  ~ KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION Global Health Policy Report

  January 21, 2020

  FIRST TRAVEL-RELATED CASE OF 2019 NOVEL CORONAVIRUS DETECTED IN UNITED STATES ~ CDC Newsroom

  February 26, 2020

  CDC CONFIRMS FIRST POSSIBLE COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION OF CORONAVIRUS IN U.S. ~ CNBC

  February 29, 2020

  WASHINGTON STATE REPORTS FIRST CORONAVIRUS DEATH IN U.S.

  ~ CBS News

  March 1, 2020

  22 PATIENTS IN U.S. HAVE CORONAVIRUS, PRESIDENT SAYS ~ CNN

  WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION DECLARES THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK A GLOBAL PANDEMIC

  ~ CNBC, March 11, 2020

  “In the past two weeks the number of cases outside China has increased thirteenfold and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries to climb even higher.”

  Declaring a pandemic is charged with major political and economic ramifications, global health experts say. It can further rattle already fragile world markets and lead to more stringent travel and trade restrictions. WHO officials had been reluctant to declare a global pandemic, which is generally defined as an illness that spreads far and wide throughout the world.

  WHO officials needed to “make it clear” that the world was in the midst of a pandemic, said Lawrence Gostin, a professor and faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.

  It “is clear” the new coronavirus has been a pandemic and WHO was “behind the curve,” Gostin told CNBC on Tuesday.

  PRESIDENT TRUMP DECLARES NATIONAL EMERGENCY OVER CORONAVIRUS

  ~ BBC News, March 13, 2020

  U.S. President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency to help handle the growing outbreak of coronavirus. The move occurs two days after the outbreak being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

  The declaration loosens regulations on the provision of healthcare and could speed up testing. There are 1,701 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and 40 deaths.

  Several U.S. states have taken measures to stem the infections rate, including banning large gatherings, sporting events and closing schools.

  The virus originated in China last December, but Europe is now the epicentre of the global pandemic.

  CORONAVIRUS NOW PRESENT IN ALL 50 STATES

  ~ NPR, March 16, 2020

  Since the first coronavirus case was confirmed in the United States, the number of cases has risen rapidly. A large portion of U.S. cases are centered on New York City. New York state, Connecticut and New Jersey have accounted for about 50% of all U.S. cases and nearly 60% of all deaths from COVID-19 have been in these three states.

  In some areas, there are signs of hope. The areas with the earliest outbreaks, such as California and Washington state, have claimed success at suppressing the disease. Six counties in the San Francisco area ordered their residents to shelter in place for three weeks.

  Other areas, especially rural communities of the Mountain West and the Southeast, have reported little or no cases of the novel coronavirus. For the most part, no self-quarantine orders are being reported in these areas, thus far.

  NEW YORK CITY DECLARED UNITED STATES OUTBREAK EPICENTER

  ~ ABC News, March 20, 2020

  Public Health officials with the state of New York report that more than 15,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and account for roughly half of the infections in the country.

  The vast majority of New Yorkers with the disease are in the New York City regions which Mayor Bill de Blasio calls the epicenter of this crisis warning that the outbreak will get worse as supplies dwindle.

  Governor Andrew Cuomo, anticipating that the state’s medical care facilities will be hit hard by COVID-19, has ordered nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to accept coronavirus patients. The policy is intended to help clear in-demand hospital beds for sicker patients.

  Some facilities have resisted the governor’s mandate who angrily defended his position during a news conference earlier today.

  “They don’t have a right to object. That is the rule and that is the regulation, and they have to comply with that. If they can’t do it, we’ll put them in a facility that can do it.”

  “Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. The physician must be ready, not only to do his duty himself, but also to secure the cooperation of the patient, of the attendants and of externals.”

  ~ Hippocrates, Greek physician, father of medicine

  “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

  And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places, and famines, and pestilences;

  and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from Heaven.

  ~ Luke, Chapter 21, Verse 11

  “He that will apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator.”

  ~ Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher and stateman, 1561 - 1626

  “But what does it mean, the plague? It’s life, that’s all.”

  ~ Author Albert Camus in The Plague, published 1947

  Part I

  In politics, nothing happens by accident

  If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

  ~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Chapter One

  Gold Palace Hotel

  Fremont Street Experience

  Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada

  Dr. Harper Randolph shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and approached her number one, Dr. Elizabeth Becker, who’d been taking notes at the back of the room. The epidemiologists had worked around the clock since their departure from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Once they hit the ground in Las Vegas, their investigation of the mysterious illness that had taken several lives over the weekend kept them running nonstop. Harper’s briefing in the Augusta Room at the Gold Palace Hotel had been a welcome respite from their disease detective work.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  They’d just finished up a two-hour assessment of what they knew about this novel disease. Harper had reached a conclusion. The answers to her many questions surrounding the deaths of the Chinese nationals staying at the hotel would be found elsewhere. Namely, China. She was just about to explain her opinions to Becker before she released the weary group for a break, when the doors to the conference room suddenly flew open.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” a baritone voice bellowed. A captain in the Nevada Army Guard appeared with two armed guardsmen. The trio filled the space and blocked Harper’s exit.

  “What?” she demanded without a hint of apprehension in her voice. She’d stared down more dangerous adversaries but never her fellow Americans with automatic weapons. “What’s this all about?”

&
nbsp; “By orders of Nevada governor George Rickey, this facility has been placed under strict quarantine, and everyone is to remain sheltered-in-place until further notice.”

  Becker couldn’t hold back. “Why are we being quarantined? Do you have any idea who we are?”

  “Doesn’t matter, ma’am. Everyone is to stay in place until we receive further orders. That includes all of you.”

  Harper searched the man’s chest for a name tag or other form of ID. She didn’t understand stripes and bars and other forms of military identification indicating rank or time of service. She gave up on protocol and took the blunt approach. The captain picked up on her attempt to identify him.