Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

by Richard Preston

A virus is a wet nanomachine, a tiny, complicated, slightly fuzzy mechanism, which is rubbery, flexible, wobbly, and often a little bit imprecise in its operation—a microscopic nugget of squishy parts. Viruses are subtle, logical, tricky, reactive, devious, opportunistic. They are constantly evolving, their forms steadily changing as time passes. Like all kinds of life, viruses possess a relentless drive to reproduce themselves so that they can persist through time.

Many of the world’s largest supercities are crowded with people who have little or no access to doctors and medical care. The cities are connected by airline routes, and the human host has zero immunity to any emerging virus. Ebola is roughly as contagious as seasonal flu.

Around ten million virus particles land on every square meter of the earth each day, drifting down from the air.

A liter of seawater contains more virus particles than any other form of life. Viruses exist in vast numbers in the human gut, infecting all of the four thousand different kinds of bacteria that live naturally in a person’s intestines. Viruses can sometimes infect other viruses.

Hiccups are a classic sign of Ebola virus disease.

Zaire is the most lethal of the six Ebolas; it is the homicidal elder sister. In the 1976 outbreak, Zaire Ebola killed 88 percent of its victims, though in subsequent outbreaks it killed roughly 60 to 70 percent.

nature often does whatever is necessary in order to make the most number of experts wrong.

Ebola particles can stay potent for up to seven days while they’re sitting on the skin of a decaying corpse.

history turns on unnoticed things. Small, hidden events can have ripple effects, and the ripples can grow.

the mind doesn’t see what it doesn’t want to see.

They realized that nobody had any idea whether Ebola shit smoke was a biohazard.

Ebola virus is known to be nearly one hundred percent fatal for pregnant women and their unborn babies.

Because, as everyone knew, Americans did not typically know what they were doing.

A person’s blood is about 2 percent antibodies by volume,

“When something is really bad, you just do what you can do.”

“When you are strong and healthy you do your part to help. And if you fade away, the next man will do his part.”

The Ebola war wasn’t won with modern medicine. It was a medieval war, and it went down as a brutal engagement between ordinary people and a life form that was trying to use the human body as a means of survival through deep time. In order to win this war against an inhuman enemy, people had to make themselves inhuman. They had to suppress their deepest feelings and instincts, tear down the bonds of love and feeling, isolate themselves from or isolate those they loved the most. Human beings had to become like monsters in order to save their human selves.