The virus
It started small. A
handful of people were infected in a distant city known only to a few.
And soon it spread.
Airports, roads and rail lines closed in response. Shelves emptied of anything
edible as hoarders dug in for a siege. Evacuations were arranged and strangers
found themselves sequestered in quarantine.
Worst of all was the tsunami
of suspicion.
Suspicious eyes glared
over face masks at anyone who looked as though they might come from the country
where it started. A cough or sneeze was enough to make a crowd scatter, as
though a dog ran into a flock of pigeons. Even inside churches, the place where
faith should banish fear, people looked at familiar faces, and those of
strangers, with wary eyes. Who knew where the enemy would next appear under a
deceptive disguise?
We’d been through it
before, with SARS. This time, governments and people were better prepared and
swifter to react. However, and in a horrid twist, this only made the virus
spread more swiftly and with greater effect.
Someone has said, we
have nothing to fear but fear itself. However, fear was the virus that
stalked the land.
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