Plague: Death was only the beginning! Read Free Page A

here that they discovered that the apartment manager had performed CPR on Dr. Dent prior to his removal by ambulance. They immediately ordered him to see his own physician and be prescribed either tetracycline or ciprofloxacin to ward off any infection that he may have developed. They also made note of the Chinese takeout boxes that were still sitting on the living room table as a possible vector factor for this disease to travel to others. The two health service doctors spent more than two hours going through Dr. Dent’s briefcase, apartment, where they discovered a mass of bloody tissues under the couch, and travel itineraries for the last month. They quickly made note of his flight records over the last few days as well as his extended stay in Madagascar, working with Doctors Without Borders. After calling their office and confirming the outbreak there, they passed this information to the CDC, as well as expanding notification throughout New York City hospitals and emergency rooms. The supervisor also made a necessary call to the mayor’s office to notify them of the possibility of an outbreak of pneumonic/bubonic plague within New York City. Other officials contacted the State Department and the FAA, to begin backtracking everyone who may have had contact with Dr. Dent during his trip home. All of these protocols had been expanded and updated after a doctor from Doctors Without Borders traveled back from West Africa with the deadly Ebola strain. That infection had terrorized thousands of people in the city. Even though it was extremely limited in its scope and rate of infection, the local population vowed to never again have an infectious disease spread throughout their city.
    Deliveryman Jerry Lee would become the second victim to die in New York City. One of his last acts was passing out packages of leftover Chinese takeout to a number of homeless people that gathered daily in the alleyway behind his restaurant. By this time, he was coughing heavily and unknowingly spread numerous bloody droplets across the disposable boxes and bags that he was handing out to the poor. And it was here at this stage, that the strain of bubonic plague accelerated its growth exponentially. Fleas, jumping from hopeless human victims, quickly spread their disease into the local rat population where it exploded through the millions of rat nests and subway tunnels under the city. Within days, sanitation workers, as well as public health officials, were observing “dancing” rats that were coming up out of the sewers and into the streets and alleyways as a plague bacilli filled their bloodstreams and drove them mad. Quickly spreading out, they began biting and infecting the human population as they raced across the city.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
    “ Death conquers all, no matter how we fight it.”
    -Thoughts from the Author
     
    Chapter 3
    Infected: 295 – Dead: 67
     
    The emergency room staff of countless hospitals across the city had developed deeply ingrained procedures due to the Ebola outbreak of 2014, which had taken place inside the city. As the initial influx of patients came into the emergency rooms, they were quickly misdiagnosed as Ebola victims due to their symptoms. However, over the next few days it was quickly determined that this was, in fact, not Ebola, but the Bubonic plague. As we stated prior to this, Ebola is a virus, but the plague is a bacterium, which does not respond to anti-viral drugs. Additionally, it was well known to the CDC and the World Health Organization that the Bubonic plague was becoming drug-resistant and much more difficult to treat. Initial cases that reported to the emergency rooms were not given the proper attention needed to fight off the disease, and it quickly spread throughout their bodies in a matter of hours. Death came swiftly that first week of the initial outbreak, as the poor and homeless were unable to fight off the devastating effects of the disease.