A ruthless epidemic is slicing through town, creating an urgent health crisis. Citizens are spreading this plague unwittingly. Those who catch it complain of respiratory problems. Not long after, they begin dying—brutally and apart from their families. The local health care infrastructure bends and then breaks; those on the front lines act heroically but are quickly overwhelmed. Civic leaders call for a quarantine, which, while generally observed, is met with some resistance, as it shuts down commerce. Even shelter-in-place orders don’t repel this deadly blight.
Amid this distress comes a blast of hope: news that a serum—an antitoxin to neutralize the bacteria—is being produced and soon will be available in mass quantities.