Epilogue

“Be not slow to visit the sick.”

—Book of Ecclesiastes

    The world didn’t end, although it may have felt like it. Civilization didn’t collapse, although it seemed at times to be put on hold. Global health officials had warned the world that an influenza pandemic was an inevitable part of our future, and then our worst nightmare came true.
    As the Avian Flu seemed to disappear into the air from which it came, Canada began to breathe deep, without fear, for the first time.
    The flu had burned its way through most of the world and still smoldered in parts of Africa and South America, leaving death, economic recession, revolution and war in its wake. More than 80 million people dead and counting. More than $2 trillion in economic losses. The poor revolting where they’d been ignored while the rich had gotten care. Regions destabilized in dozens of flashpoints——Egypt toppling amid an Islamic revolution, North and South Korea skirmishing, India and Pakistan threatening nuclear holocaust, China in open revolution, Russia imploding: geopolitical maps redrawn in months. The United States seemingly in decline with its economy battered by high rates of unemployment and inflation, half the country under martial law, more than a million dead, its dollar collapsing after foreign governments could no longer finance its massive debt.
    The first wave of the Pandemic lasted less than a year, but its stamp on the world will be permanent. And it’s still out there——mutating, changing, adapting.
    Canada too had suffered. Nearly 8 million clinically ill. Nearly 100,000 dead. Another 35,000 recovered but reporting lingering effects of the disease such as disorientation, lethargy, lower back pain, blindness. Hundreds of thousands still traumatized and suffering psychological distress. The economy in major recession, unemployment and inflation rampant, entire industries devastated by losses.
    The “thin white line” had not broken, although the health system lay in ruins. Nearly 100,000 of Canada’s 600,000 healthcare workers had gotten sick or died.
    Several days before New Year’s Eve, Prime Minister Kirk Goodall declared the Pandemic over in Canada and that the federal government had revoked its emergency powers, restoring suspended citizen rights. He said it is time to heal, to mourn, to rebuild; with courage, fueled by hope, our sick nation will fully recover from these wounds.
    Church bells rang in towns and cities across Canada, both those that bore the brunt of Avian Flu’s assault and those that remained relatively untouched. People streamed from their homes and called to each other, hugged, wept openly for their losses. Soldiers and police officers joined in the cheering. After months of isolation, there were suddenly no lines separating us as Canadians. We had come through the crisis together.
    That night, thousands held candlelight vigils in the towns and cities. For months afterwards, people journeyed to their nearest hospital and laid hundreds of candles, flowers, wreaths and photographs of loved ones against its walls. These impromptu, ongoing shrines are our only monuments to the victims of the Pandemic——and to the courage and compassion of the people who helped get us through it.
    Now, months later, despite continuing hardships, we see evidence all around us of resurgent normalcy. The fever clinics gone. Flu survivors returned to their jobs. City services at full capacity. Reliable power, heat, water. Gas and groceries still expensive but filling up tanks and shelves. Markets and businesses reopened. Laughter a normal part of daily life.
Still, after the laughter, people soberly remember those long months of the flu, and they shiver and wonder: Is it really over? Are we safe?
    A second wave may come in as little as six months, when the next flu season starts, scientists like Dr. Gregory Branch warn. By then, many of us will have been vaccinated. At the time of writing, this second wave has yet to materialize. The virus may mutate into something even deadlier or, like the Spanish Flu, lose its virulence.
    Whatever comes, the real question is: Will we be ready?

——Craig DiLouie
Calgary, Alberta
April 24, 2013

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©2008 Future Shock Books, a division of ZING Communications, Inc.