The End of Men(17)
Amanda had a letter published in The Times on November 12. Now, immediately I thought that was weird. What kind of respected, senior ER doctor has to write in to a newspaper to tell the population about a pandemic? It shows that there’s something being covered up. The letter was published on the newspaper’s website and went viral on certain, often paranoid, parts of Twitter and Reddit.
I asked the CDC to make a statement on November 16 and received a “No comment” response. That was the second oddity about the whole situation. If someone’s got their facts mixed up, you can just release a statement saying that they’re wrong. But they didn’t do that or say any of their usual comforting lines about “Confirming in due course once we have more information,” or even “There is no reason to panic.” Not being told not to panic made me panic.
Then, on November 20, Amanda Maclean was interviewed in The Times. She used the term “the Plague” to describe the virus affecting, by that point, much of Scotland (only the Highlands were so far largely unaffected); a virus, she claimed, with an almost guaranteed mortality rate, only affecting men but carried by women, easily transmitted and beginning with two days in which men were asymptomatic. The UK press went into meltdown at the news.
You might be wondering why I didn’t report on this before now, and the answer is that my boss, the editor of the Washington Post, didn’t want me to, which is ironic when you consider the fact that he is the one at risk of dying from this disease, not me. He didn’t want to risk panicking people unnecessarily, especially as national and international institutions haven’t made statements. And there’s a lot of domestic political drama going on at the moment and he wants me to dig out a past indiscretion for every congressman from Texas to Ohio. Normally, I love that stuff. Hold powerful men accountable for their past transgressions? No problem. Burn down the patriarchy one corrupt politician at a time? Sign me up!
But this story is life or death. This story is the story, quite possibly, of the end of the world. It cannot wait any longer. I think my editor, and lots of other men who are gatekeepers to information around the world, are terrified. They are so frozen by panic that they can’t bear to look reality in the face. So I’m here to do their job for them.
In the three and a half weeks since Amanda’s interview was published, over one hundred thousand British men have died. Hundreds of thousands more are likely infected, or will come into contact with an infected man or woman, in the next few days.
The US has so far remained largely unaffected thanks to the government’s restriction of flights to and from Europe regardless of whether you’re an American citizen, a move as unpopular as it is wise. But this Plague is here. There are reports across the country—in Tampa, Nashville, LA, Little Rock, Newport—of men dying of “sepsis” and “sudden adult death syndrome” and “short, unexpected illnesses.” Wake up, people. It is the Plague. Social media in Scotland is a screaming vortex of fear, sickness and people declaring that they are leaving the country despite ever fewer means to do so. Singapore is making changes to its capital control policies, banning the removal of capital by citizens and foreigners. The Singaporean government basically offers safety and economic stability in exchange for a very limited say in its governance. This is not just a red flag, it is a massive red cape we should all be watching carefully for the bull just behind it.
I’ve spoken to Amanda Maclean; she kindly gave me ten minutes of her time yesterday from her home in Glasgow, where she is holed up with her husband and sons. She is an extraordinary woman. She has shown me the e-mails in which she contacted Health Protection Scotland, Public Health England, the WHO, politicians, all of which were ignored. She says there has been incompetence at the highest levels of government in Scotland and England. I don’t have the information to prove it one way or another. I have also received—from an anonymous and therefore unverified source—a report written on November 10 by a member of the British Intelligence Services. It sets out in detail the direction the Plague will take—the countries it will spread to, the number of men it will kill and where, and the difficulties of fighting it. According to my sources, the report was ignored by their superiors at MI5, who missed a vital opportunity to control the Plague at an early stage. They are now working in a different job outside of the Intelligence Services. An extract of the report is below:
The virus appears only to affect men but is carried by women (who do not appear vulnerable to it). This analysis is based on seven days of information about the virus. We understand from social media posts made by Dr. Amanda Maclean—who claims to have treated Patient Zero—that it is not responsive to drugs or medical treatment. She claims it has a high mortality rate, with tons of men dying within twenty-four hours. If this information is correct, it seems inevitable the virus will quickly spread (if it hasn’t already) to other major cities in England, Scotland and Wales. The number of international flights leaving Glasgow, Prestwick and Edinburgh airports on a daily basis make the chances of an international spread of the virus very high.
Key risks include: civil unrest (police, fire services, paramedics, armed forces, intelligence services all disproportionately male), major economic disruption, high death toll, vulnerability to terrorist attack (due to weakened security services), food shortages.
Risk rating: Urgent—requires immediate attention and escalation.
I’m not a doctor and I don’t work for MI5. I don’t have any way of verifying this information. What I do know, from years of reporting, is that ignorance, incompetence and fear so often go hand in hand with government that none of us should be surprised if the institutions we thought would keep us safe would in fact be woefully inadequate in the face of a pandemic.