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“Yes, sir?”
“Doc needs you to help him with a new intake.”
“A new intake.” I say quietly knowing exactly what that means, I nod slowly, then make my way to him.
This is the twentieth person that has come up with the virus in the two-ish weeks that we’ve been here. We have received word that another trial of a vaccine should get to us tomorrow in hope that it will be better than the first. We’ve received one trial and so far, it’s only made the five people on it worse. But thankfully, we haven’t had any fatalities.
In the isolation area, the doc is rushing around with a grim look on his face until he sees me.
“Ah, there you are,” he says.
“You asked for me, sir?”
“I wouldn’t need to train you, and we need to be quick about this. I don’t want to cause any alarm, but we have more people infected.” he says quietly.
“Whatever you need sir, I am here.” I tell him.
“Gown up.” He instructs.
I do as asked and once I gather additional PPE’s, I walk through into the isolation area.
The isolation space has expanded, and I notice that there is more than one new intake. I look over to the doc.
“How many total?”
“We have five more right now, as you can see all of our beds are now taken. The folks who were in the other quarantine space have been sent off to the closest hospital this morning. So that would be nineteen spaces freed up. The four across the room will be going into the quarantine as soon as we’re finished.”
“Does this mean that we’ve got it too?” I ask.
“Son, I’m not sure what it all means. The virus is airborne and until we get a vaccine that works, it’s looking like we’ve all got it.”
We run through the motions for each patient and get each hooked onto a line of liquids and then move the others he previously mentioned into the adjoining room.
Since I’ve never been in the actual quarantine space, I take extra precaution as I wear a protective face shield on top of my heavy-duty mask, double up on gloves, and wear a gown over my clothing. Upon finishing up, I stand naked in the decontamination area and scrub my body hard. I clean myself, I don’t miss an area of skin. Once finished, I put on new clothes and stand outside the area waiting for the doc to reappear.
When he does, I step forward to catch his attention.
“Are we able to contain this?” I ask him.
“While I would love to say yes, I’m not positive. The virus affects some, but not others, which is why I think we don’t have a larger number of infected in here.”
“What do we know about the virus?” I ask.
“It act’s on its own. Think of it as a random number situation. We have one through ten and every other person is selected. The others, for some reason have not produced the same results of how they react to the virus.”
“So, the both of us?” I prompt.
“We could already have it and our bodies are showing it much differently than those who are in the other room.” He says.
While that’s not exactly the words that I want to hear, I know that I need to go speak to Colonel and excuse myself as politely as possible. I find the Colonel and wait for him to get off the phone. Once he looks up at me, I sit down, so we’re eye level.
“Sir, with all due respect, we need to update the people in here and let them know what the doc just told me.”
“And what’s that James, that we’re all going to die, it’s just a matter of time?” He says dryly as if he’s been answering the same questions over and over again.
“I think that everyone has a right to know what is happening.” I tell him.
“James, stay in your lane. We want to keep the crowd under control,” he says sternly.
