I wrote a post not long ago about how the realities of the pandemic reminded me somewhat of the tales I’d written about people surviving a pandemic world. Yet, how they also differed in people’s reactions. As the Facebook meme suggested, “It turns out the expression, ‘Avoid it like the plague’ is wrong, because people don’t.”
While the aspect of virus deniers isn’t something I had anticipated, one thing I had written about was the notion of a person who was “immune” to the virus that scientists were studying in search of a cure. The main character in my virus series (Concealed, Exposed, Contained), Elaan is such a person, and she is being studied by scientists looking for a cure to the deadly virus ravaging the world.
So, I was quite intrigued when a ran across this story on an NBC news site, He unknowingly had Covid-19. Now his blood contains rare antibodies. Just like Elaan, this is is a man whose body is seemingly immune to the most harmful effects of the disease.The scientific nuance–per the article’s description–is different from my character. Whereas she cannot get the disease, this real-life person, Mr. John Hollis, actually did get COVID-19. Then his immune system went on the warpath and destroyed it. He felt a sniffle, and that’s it. According to the article:
“Hollis, 54, a former journalist, learned that his blood is fortified with so-called super antibodies — antibodies that neutralize the virus, which, even when diluted 10,000 times, still resists Covid-19, Liotta said.
It is a medical phenomenon found in less than 5 percent of the population who have contracted the coronavirus, a study indicates, making Hollis and his blood valuable resources in identifying potential treatments for Covid-19, Liotta said.”
So, his cells are brilliant and everyone wants cells like his. This is why researchers are studying him. The bad thing is that doctors think he was an early asymptomatic spreader, and gave the disease to his roommate. Interestingly, there are characters in Concealed who are asymptomatic spreaders, and they have such moral dilemmas about this. They feel extreme guilt over the idea that they could spread, but not get sick.
Yet, their guilt stems from the fact that they are a select few. In the Covid-19 pandemic, that guilt has been somewhat diffused by the fact that there are so many asymptomatic spreaders. By the fact that we don’t have good testing and so most people who are sick don’t know they’re sick and don’t know they are spreading. There is both extreme guilt and blame foisted upon those who knowingly spread Covid, going to parties knowing they’ve tested positive or getting on airplanes. There has been a public backlash against those who know, one that I think is reminiscent to those in my book.
Though, Concealed gets into some slippery slope issues of how do you treat someone who is unique in their asymptomatic spread. These concepts were based on Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, who spread the deadly disease to 53 people as a carrier who was unable to get sick from the disease.
When Covid first came on the scene, they described it as novel, because we hadn’t seen it before. It’s novel, too, in that most diseases like this in the past have had effected those who get it similarly. If you get the flu, you know you have the flu and you feel sick. This disease brings that Typhoid Mary carrier vibe, yet diffuses it, because so many people are like Mary–seemingly unaffected themselves–but bringing blight to those the come into contact with.
As usual, it’s so strange to see parallels between life and fiction. The good news is that life seems to be doing so much better than my fiction, set in the throws of despair. At least, here in the real world, we have a vaccine. The roll out has been slower than expected, but it is coming. And that is good news. I love that real life scientists worked better and faster than the ones in my book and they got it done. If I write about viruses again, art will definitely imitate life.
Take care.
-RJ