The End of Men(16)
“I’ll stay as long as you need me,” I offer, on impulse, but I mean it. This is the place where we’re possibly going to save the world. They need all the hands, and brains, they can get.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” George says, and I get the bill and jump in a taxi. I’ve been booked into a horrible hotel on Euston Road. It’s called a Premier Inn. Based on the photos online, there’s a lot of purple in their interior decoration and I’m going to leave it at that because it’s too depressing for words.
I start work tomorrow in one of the labs at the Hospital for Infectious Disease. George has assigned me to the team trying to identify exactly which part of the virus allows it to impact men but not women, even though women are hosts. That’s the key thing that’s allowing it to spread so fast. When half of the population is walking around, symptomless, carrying and spreading the virus, you’re in trouble. And we are.
I e-mail my boss at the CDC and tell him I won’t be coming back in three weeks’ time. I don’t care what his response will be; some things are more important. I include in my e-mail a long description of today’s meeting. I’m trying to convey how unbelievably bad this is going to get and as I’m typing, I catch my breath.
My dad. My dad is in Jackson. It’s not close to Europe, sure, but this virus is going to make its way to the US soon if it hasn’t already. There have already been a few reports of the occasional case and surely it’ll mushroom in the next few days.
Indecision immediately strikes. I should go home. No, I should stay here. I need to see my dad. I need to be here to help. He’s my family. This is more important.
I send my dad a long e-mail setting out basic infection risk protocols. He’s not to use public transportation or cabs. He’s not to eat at restaurants or order takeout food. He’s to stay in the house as much as he can and not meet up with anyone else. Just stay inside with Mom, I instruct. My dad has always responded better to shows of strength than what he sees as feminine pleading.
My boss replies. I already know what the e-mail is going to say before I open it but it’s still a blow.
From: Garry Anderson ([email protected]) to Elizabeth Cooper ([email protected]) 9:36 p.m. on December 10, 2025
Hi Liz,
Glad you arrived safe. I hear what you’re saying but there’s no way we can spare anyone right now. Let’s see how things progress in London and then, if more resources are required in a month, we can consider sending three CDCers over to provide some assistance.
The focus here is more on helping the administration to shut down travel and identify cases quickly. The president’s keen to minimize movement across the Atlantic and we think that’s the right path.
Stay safe,
Garry
It’s not me who’s in danger here, Garry! Part of me is pathetically grateful for the offer of help but it’s not enough. It’s a dismissal, really. At least they don’t seem to think I’m exaggerating the problem. They’re just going after one small part of the solution. It’s too simplistic. Pandemics can’t be kept out. It doesn’t work like that, not anymore.
Before I turn off the light to sleep, I do something I’ve been meaning to all day. I read all the headlines from the big English news sites. The Guardian: “Department of Health assures public it is working on a vaccine.” The Telegraph: “Marty Denhold says to stay calm; death toll reaches 100,000.” The Sun: “You Try and Stay Calm, Mary, Men Are Dying.” The Times: “Amanda Maclean follow-up: The doctor who raised the alarm accuses the WHO of negligence.”
I try to sleep but despite the heaviness of jet lag there’s a fog of panic. My thoughts are circling. Dad. Vaccine. George. Mary. No vaccine. Just starting. Dad. Dad. What will happen to my dad?
PANIC
ARTICLE IN THE WASHINGTON POST ON DECEMBER 15, 2025
“The Plague is here and someone should have warned you”
by Maria Ferreira
This article is not going to be like any other article you’ve ever read in this paper or, most likely, in any other. I might as well get that straight here at the beginning. It is going to be told in the first person even though this is not the Comments section. It has not been edited by the editor or deputy editor because I went above their heads to seek permission from the owner of this paper to publish it. Now that’s out of the way, I’m going to set out my credentials so you know the kind of journalist you’re dealing with here. I’ve been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice (a prize that, I guarantee you, is not going to go ahead this year or next year or the year after that for reasons you’re about to read), I have a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, I am a former science editor for this paper and I have carried out more than twenty investigations into thorny, difficult issues with corruption and secrecy at the heart of them.
After seventeen years as a journalist, this is the most terrifying article I have ever had to write. The basic message is that your dad is going to die, your brother is going to die, your son is going to die, your husband is going to die, every man you’ve ever loved and/or slept with is going to die. Let me take you back to the beginning. This all started in early November 2025, not that most of you, our US-based readers, will know this. I knew there was something big going on because Twitter and Facebook over in the UK were hives of anxiety and panic. If you take one thing from this article, let it be that we should all have been talking about this a lot earlier. A doctor in Scotland named Amanda Maclean wrote in to newspapers, posted online, generally screamed into the void that there was a pandemic starting. She originally identified the virus and treated the person who is informally referred to as Patient Zero.