Crisis in the Red Zone Quotes

“Ebola virus moves from one person to the next by following the deepest and most personal ties of love, care, and duty that join people to one another and most clearly define us as human. The virus exploits the best parts of human nature as a means of travel from one person to the next. In this sense the virus is a true monster.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“Viruses are the undead of the living world, the zombies of deep time. Nobody knows the origin of viruses—how they came into existence or when they appeared in the history of life on earth.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“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.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“It is to say that history turns on unnoticed things. Small, hidden events can have ripple effects, and the ripples can grow. A child touches a bat…a woman riding on a bus bumps against someone who isn’t feeling well…an email gets buried…a patient isn’t found…and suddenly the future arrives.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“It is fair to say, however, that nature often does whatever is necessary in order to make the most number of experts wrong.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“In a town in Liberia, a young woman named Fatu Kekula, who was a nursing student, ended up caring for four of her family members at home when there was no room for them in a hospital—her parents, her sister, and a cousin. She didn’t have any protective gear, so she created a bio-hazmat suit out of plastic garbage bags. She tied garbage bags over her feet and legs, put on rubber boots over the bags, and then put more bags over her boots. She put on a raincoat, a surgical mask, and multiple rubber gloves, and she covered her head with pantyhose and a garbage bag. Dressed this way, Fatu Kekula set up IV lines for her family members, giving them saline solution to keep them from becoming dehydrated. Her parents and sister survived; her cousin died. And she herself remained uninfected. Local medical workers called Fatu Kekula’s measures the Trash Bag Method. All you needed were garbage bags, a raincoat, and no small amount of love and courage. Medical workers taught the Trash Bag Method, or variants of it, to people who couldn’t get to hospitals”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“A giant virus named the Mamavirus, which was discovered infecting amoebae that live in a water-cooling tower in Paris, gets infected by a small virus called the Sputnik. A Mamavirus particle with Sputnik disease is one sick virus—deformed and unable to replicate very well.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“One way to understand viruses is to think about them as biological machines. 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.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“A virus particle is a very small capsule made of proteins locked together in a mathematical pattern. The pattern of the interlocking proteins in a virus is far more complicated than a snowflake. The protein capsule is sometimes wrapped in an oily membrane. Inside the capsule there is a small amount of DNA or RNA, the molecules that contain the genetic code of the virus. The genetic code is the virus’s operating system, or wetware, the complete set of instructions for the virus to make copies of itself. Unlike a snowflake or any other kind of crystal, a virus is able to re-create its form. It would be as if a single snowflake started copying itself as it falls, and those copies of the snowflake copy themselves, creating ever-growing numbers of identical copies of the first snowflake, until the air is filled with falling snow, and each flake is a perfect replica of the first flake. Many virologists feel that viruses are not truly living things. At the same time, viruses are obviously not dead. Virologists like to describe them as life forms. The term is a contradiction: How can something be a form of life that isn’t alive? Viruses carry on their existence in a misty borderland that lies between life and death, a gray zone where the things we encounter are neither provably alive nor certainly dead. One way to understand viruses is to think about them as biological machines. 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. When a virus starts copying itself strongly and rapidly in a host, the process is called virus amplification. As a virus amplifies itself in its host, the host, a living organism, can be destroyed. Viruses are the undead of the living world, the zombies of deep time. Nobody knows the origin of viruses—how they came into existence or when they appeared in the history of life on earth. Viruses may be examples or relics of life forms that operated at the dawn of life. Viruses may have come into existence with the first stirrings of life on the planet, roughly four billion years ago. Or they may have arisen after life started, during the time when single-celled bacteria had already come into existence—nobody knows.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“He could now see the problem only too clearly: The local people didn’t believe that Ebola was real. The virus was out there, it was spreading, and the local people would become violent if the team tried to find it. It was very clear to him—after nearly being killed in a village—that his nation was heading for a disaster. All he could do, personally, was just keep working and try to keep his family safe.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“By now, the warriors who stand at the gates of the virosphere understand that they face a long struggle against formidable enemies. Many of their weapons will fail, but some will begin to work. The human species carries certain advantages in this fight and has things going for it that viruses do not. These include self-awareness, the ability to work in teams, and the willingness to sacrifice, traits that have served us well during our expansion into our environment. If viruses can change, we can change, too.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“A question has to be asked: If a Level 4 emerging virus spread to a million people in North America, or in any continent, would hospitals be able to handle the patients and give them care? Would epidemiologists be able to trace and break the chains of transmission if a million people were infected?”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“What I propose to look at is a global outbreak that might be termed a Level 4 event worldwide outbreak of a Biosafety Level 4 emerging virus that travels in the air from person to person, and is vaccineless and untreatable with modern medicine.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“seems pretty clear that Auntie knew she could die if she attempted to save Lucy May. The nurses knew it, too. Auntie and her nurses made the ultimate sacrifice as they attempted to rescue Lucy May; they were like the firemen who ran into the World Trade Center moments before the tower collapsed. They did their duty because it was what they had to do.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“This is how all outbreaks end,” Armand Sprecher, the Doctors’ official in Brussels, said. “It’s always a change in behavior. Ebola outbreaks end when people decide they’re going to end.” In”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“Yet who knows whether you have been called to the kingdom for such a time as this.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“You don’t want to cross that bright line, the ethical line, she told herself.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“Viruses more powerful and dangerous than Ebola were going to emerge in the future, and medical people were going to have to deal with them. “If we don’t help, what message are we sending our children?” Hensley would later say. “Our children are going to inherit these problems, and people are dying. Part of the responsibility of a parent is to teach our children how to be responsible. We have to set the example for our staff, our families, and the patients in Africa.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, Nor of the arrow that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“Doctors Without Borders adheres to an unyielding ethical principle known as “distributive justice.” The principle asserts that all human beings deserve equal access to the best available medical care. Under the principle of distributive justice, every person is entitled to the same care, whether they are rich or poor, powerful or weak. The principle requires that medical resources must be spread out equitably among all patients according to their needs.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“When everybody is in tears, he thought, somebody has to see to what is happening. What are the things that need to be done?”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“When you are strong and healthy you do your part to help. And if you fade away, the next man will do his part.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“A ninety-minute cure for Ebola? A hundred percent efficacy rate, even when the animals were hours from death? Results like this simply don’t happen in pharmaceutical research. It seemed impossible.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“Ebola virus moves from one person to the next by following the deepest and most personal ties of love, care, and duty that join people to one another and most clearly define us as human.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“The red zones of Doctors Without Border were, in effect, giant plastic bags in which people infected with emergent Ebola were kept. This technique trapped the virus inside the plastic bag, where it would work its way through the human bodies in the bag, killing many of them—but the virus couldn’t escape from the bag. The red zones were artificial walls placed around hot spots of Ebola in order to break the growing chains of infection in the human species.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“Over the years, Doctors Without Borders had become the shock cavalry of the human response to Ebola whenever it broke out.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“It was the lord of the strains, back from the dead.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“And still there was no vaccine or treatment for any filovirus, including Ebola. Nor was there a vaccine or medical countermeasure against other viruses that seemed ready for a breakthrough into the human species: Sars, Mers, Nipah.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“Biomedical research is done by teams. The research is time-consuming and deeply expensive, and the results are often disappointing. With persistence, talent, and luck, and plenty of money, a biomedical research team can sometimes pull the veil off some small mystery of nature and the human body, and can find a better way to treat a disease.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

“At this writing there are six known species of Ebola. The six Ebola sisters. In order of discovery, the six Ebolas are named Zaire Ebola, Sudan Ebola, Reston Ebola, Taï Forest Ebola, Bundibugyo Ebola, and Bombali Ebola.”
― Richard Preston, Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come