Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End Read Free Page A

POINT
January 11, 11:48 a.m.
----
    Back on the park bench, having a quick smoke. Even a blind man could see that the mood on the street has changed. It’s subtle, but there’s no denying it.
    Yesterday, at noon, the president gave a press conference, along with the ministers of health, interior, and defense. The message was basically “No cause for alarm.” But people are more alarmed with each passing hour.
    What adds to the alarm is that the opposition party’s leader is demanding the immediate closure of ports and airports. COPE radio station in Madrid is calling for the army to occupy the borders. Just forty-eight hours after deploying soldiers to Dagestan, they’ve decided to bring them back.
    I don’t usually agree with talk show host Federico Losantos and his ultra-right-wing ranting on the radio, but maybe he’s right this time. The situation seems to be completely out of control. In Russia, chaos has broken out for sure. Entire regions are incommunicado. No one’s in control. News of looting, pillaging, and mass murder is spreading like wildfire across the Internet. Channel 5 broadcast French satellite images last night. You could see huge fires burning in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia,only three hundred miles from its border with Dagestan. There’s no word from the city, and no one seems to be fighting the fires. What the fuck’s going on? Are they trying to burn the place down?
    The WHO finally ruled that it’s definitely West Nile virus and a strain of a disease similar to Ebola. Ebola. In every newspaper, on every radio and television station, they never tire of repeating that it’s a hemorrhagic fever that affects humans and primates. Since it was discovered in 1976, they’ve identified five strains: Ebola Bundibugyo, Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Reston, and Ebola Taï Forest or Ivory Coast. Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids, primarily blood or saliva, and has a fatality rate up to 90 percent. But some sources have said this can’t be Ebola, or at least none of the known strains. Rumors all over the place and not one goddamn bit of concrete information!
    Deep down, I don’t think anybody has any fucking idea what’s going on. They’re flying blind. The Swiss government has ordered the mass vaccination of its entire population with Tamiflu, to prevent bird flu. The United Kingdom has temporarily closed the Channel Tunnel and its ports, but they think there’re already cases there, brought in by infected aid workers who rushed to evacuate out of Dagestan. Many came back wounded; some had been attacked by rabid animals. In Germany the situation is even worse. The Ramstein quarantine hasn’t worked, and they’ve declared martial law. How long till Spain adopts similar measures?
    I’m not sure what’s going on in the rest of the world, but in Atlanta they’re talking about a global pandemic. In the United States, apocalyptic sects are getting ready for an invasion of Martians or some crazy thing like that. Meanwhile, theUS president has announced he’s raising the terrorism alert and creating an emergency cabinet.
    According to the Ministry of Health, we’ve reached the “breaking point” in an epidemic, and a pandemic is now inevitable. It should hit Spain in a matter of days, if it’s not here already. It happened so fast—just two weeks since it started. Judging from what the authorities have made public, it’s still not clear how the disease is transmitted or what the incubation period is, or even what the symptoms are.
    People are scared shitless. Today I saw two people walking down the street wearing masks. I was in a bar last night with Pablo and Hector when a guy started coughing loudly and was politely asked to leave. Some public activities have been temporarily suspended. The local government here in Galicia is considering closing public schools for few weeks. The government has not put restrictive measures in place, but people are starting to restrict