Thursday evening, just before a state dinner to honor the visit of the new president of Thailand.
However, the deadly SDC virus was already present inside the White House.
One of the security consultants who had attended Jim Henderson’s presentation at the trade show in New York on Monday had meetings with some of the members of the White House Secret Service detail on Tuesday. SDC was now spreading through the White House staff. When the president called an emergency meeting after the state dinner to discuss the New York State health crisis, several of the meeting participants were already infected. By the end of the meeting, the president was also infected and his fate was sealed, together with the seventy thousand others now infected around the world.
As the sun rose in Washington on Friday, July 17, 2015, it was already midday in Europe. The seriousness of the situation was being recognized there for the first time. Well over a hundred unexplained sleeping deaths were reported in Europe.
As the morning progressed in North America, sleeping deaths were being reported in large numbers. There were more than five hundred deaths in Glens Falls, three hundred in New York City and nearly two hundred across the rest of North America, spread over more than twenty cities and towns. The newspapers and TV and radio newscasts were now leading with this story and, as the number of reported deaths increased, the tone of the reports was changing from factual to worried.
CDC in Atlanta was the scene of feverish activity, putting a strong emphasis on finding a diagnosis for the deaths, but without any success. The mild cold like symptoms suffered by most of the victims had been noted, but none of the autopsies had revealed any major conditions common to the victims that could explain their premature deaths. Until the CDC scientists found a cause of death, they could not even begin the search for a cure or prevention mechanism. The team responsible for tracking and isolating the infection was now very worried indeed.
It was obvious the original source of the SDC contagion had been from Glens Falls or New York because of the number of reported deaths from these areas. The spread to other areas and even other countries and continents had been so rapid that any kind of isolation or quarantine plan was doomed to failure.
His staff was updating the president on an hourly basis, who was now himself suffering from what seemed like early cold symptoms. As the reported death toll increased, it became obvious this was a very serious situation.
On Friday afternoon, the president held an emergency session with the objective of coming up with an action plan. The possibility of setting up designated quarantine areas around the country, with a total ban on movement into and out of the areas, was discussed for the first time.
The practical and legal problems involved in implementing such a quarantine plan were recognized, with the large number of people and different jurisdictions involved. The president and his staff decided, with the approval of the CDC experts in attendance at the meeting, to postpone the decision until the next morning. The numbers of deaths in Europe and the rest of the world were not yet large enough to warrant implementation of quarantine measures there.
As government officials were considering quarantines and other emergency measures, the SDC contagion was continuing to spread rapidly. By the end of the day, about six hundred thousand people were infected around the world. Nearly half a million people in North America and over a hundred thousand in Europe were suffering from the mild cold like SDC symptoms that would cause them to die in their sleep sometime in the next two days.
Panic in Glens Falls was rampant. More than five hundred people were already dead. By Friday evening, more than half of the population had fled the area. Since nearly all the people who lived in the Glens Falls area were already infected, they were taking SDC with them wherever they went.
In New York City more than three hundred were dead and about three hundred thousand were infected. The exit from the city was becoming a major traffic problem and a public TV broadcast by the mayor on Friday evening had not improved the situation. His pleas for New Yorkers to stay calm and not to leave the city were ignored. The broadcast had accelerated the panic and urgency to get out of the city as rapidly as possible.
Saturday was the day that brought the realization to most governments that the spreading contagion was more serious than anything ever previously seen. A few forward-thinking people saw a threat of the total extinction of the human race.
As the day broke in Europe, more than a thousand people were dead. In North America, more than seven thousand had died in their sleep during the previous night. The number of deaths in the rest of the world was relatively small, fewer than two hundred. However, the unexplained sleeping deaths had reached every continent. It was now recognized as being caused by the same infection claiming much higher numbers of victims in North America and Europe, where panic had by now become endemic.
Saturday was the most difficult day in the president’s life. His chief of staff had awakened him at four in the morning when the news of large numbers of sleeping deaths had started to come in from England, France, Italy and Sweden. The planned federal health emergency meeting that had been set up for ten that morning was brought forward to seven.
By the time the meeting started, the news from Europe, Asia and Africa was even more alarming. When the meeting got into session, the reports of deaths in cities in North America started to come in, as people woke up to find family members, lovers and friends had died in their sleep. The number of reported deaths in Glen Falls and New York was especially horrifying. Closer to home, by nine, more than a hundred deaths had been reported in the Washington area.
The barely controlled panic of the meeting participants nearly got out of control when the meeting was interrupted. An aide reported that three members of the White House Secret Service detail had died in their sleep the previous night. It was a credit to the president and his staff attending the meeting that only two staffers abruptly excused themselves on hearing the news. They deserted their White House duties to immediately collect their own families and flee Washington.
As the information now available was reviewed, the connection to the mild cold symptoms experienced by most victims prior to their sleeping death was brought to light. Most of the people in the meeting noticed that nearly everyone in the room, including the president himself, seemed to be suffering from a runny nose.
The director of the CDC despondently admitted how little useful information his organization had discovered about the contagion. A firm diagnosis of SDC still had not been possible. The cause of death was uncertain, despite a large number of autopsies. No cure or preventive measures had been identified. The only definite recommendation he was able to make was the immediate implementation of the quarantine plan that had been tentatively discussed the previous evening.
The meeting ended before ten, after the CDC report. Most of the participants hurried off to see their personal physicians about their cold symptoms. The president’s doctor was summoned immediately. The medical advice obtained by these most powerful people in the country was no different and no more helpful than what the rest of the population were receiving.
At eleven, the president had given the unprecedented executive order to mobilize all federal and state authorities. He announced a complete quarantine of all urban areas with populations of more than a million. All public and private air travel was suspended within the United States. All flights to and from the United States were canceled indefinitely. Interstate highways were closed, as were all U.S. border crossings. The steps taken were much more far-reaching than after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
At noon, the president addressed the nation on television and radio. After explaining the gravity of the crisis, he urged everyone to remain calm and stay at home. Despite his best intentions, the president’s actions and his address to the nation made the panic arising around the
