The Final Pandemic

"Good evening, welcome to Meet the Press. As always, I'm Lindsay Martinez. Make sure to tap that like button and subscribe for more discussions. Today, we have Doctor Miyagi from the University of Georgia medical school."

"Thank you for inviting me."

"Recently we heard news about a breakout of the Nipah virus. Factory workers in the Asian Alliance Autonomous Zone have been sent to hospitals with severe coughs and difficulty breathing. Doctor, is this something we should be concerned about? Previous Nipah cases have been very lethal and contagious."

"I have been briefed by the medical experts on the ground there this morning. I can say that we really should not be concerned with. We have good confidence that every worker who was exposed is now in isolation and receiving an antibody treatment. We will continue to have community health organizations reach out to people at risk to monitor their health."

"What about people outside of the autonomous zone? Is it possible that any shippers at the port could've been exposed?"

"That is something that has already been considered. Thanks to the Graham Vaccine program, over the last decade we have pre-emptively developed vaccines for a number of viruses suspected to be a problem, including Nipah. This funding has allowed us to put together an emergency reserve of ten thousand innoculations. A thousand are already being shipped to the island while the rest will be sent to the destinations. If there are any outbreaks, we'll be able to move swiftly to contain the virus."

"Now doctor, you're a bit older than me..."

"Is that a question?"

"Ha, what I meant was to ask about the pandemic of the early 2020s. The coronavirus and its mutations caused widespread illness and death. Just like today it started from a small outbreak. How will this be any different?"

"That's a good question Lindsay. I remember that pandemic very well, and it's what inspired me to switch my studies to epidimeology. We learned a lot from that pandemic both on the health monitoring side and treatment side. Genetic sequencing is now routine, and cheap, for any ill patient. These gene sequences can quickly be correlated with other patients to alert officials of potential outbreaks."

"I read that officials were slow to take the outbreaks seriously."

"Political officials, yes. These sequences are sent to a global database that is accessible by health officials. We still need good actors, but it reduces the likelihood of a cover up."

"So you spot an outbreak. What happens next?"

"We have tools and processes in place. With a genetic sequence we can right away identify the molecular structure of a virus and use deep learning algorithms to synthesize antibody treatments. And Dr. Graham led the effort to study and develop vaccines that can be quickly deployed around the world, using the same kind of vaccine technology we used in the 2020s."

"Doctor Miyagi, we have a global audience on our show. If someone watching believes they are sick, what should they do?"

"I would recommend that they visit their closest health clinic. They can get a quick swab and genetic sequencing done in just a few minutes and know for sure. If you do have the Nipah virus, they'll be able to move you right away to treatment."

"Thanks for this conversation. Any last words?"

"Yes, I would say there's no need to panic. There may still be bad memories of the past, but we've learned a lot since then."

"Thank you Doctor and as always make sure to like and subscribe to Meet the Press."