Lost Immunity by Daniel Kalla (free reads TXT) 📕

Nathan’s fingers slip between hers. “Matter of fact, the only good thing to happen to me since I came to Seattle is meeting you.”

Lisa looks down at their interlocking hands. She realizes she doesn’t want the contact to end. Reluctantly, though, she wriggles her hand free. “Thank you, really,” she says without looking at him. “I better go.”

CHAPTER 43

The Outbreak Control Team meeting is well attended, but it feels to Lisa as if the air has been sucked out of the room. The members accept the bleak statistical update for day twelve of the meningococcal outbreak—three confirmed geographical clusters, twenty-three dead, two antibiotic prophylaxis failures, and forty-nine infected—with collective resignation.

Lisa suppresses a yawn. It was another near-sleepless night. Dominic was still petulant, but at least he was talking to her. He even asked about the outbreak. But after her roller coaster of a day, she didn’t have the energy—or, if she was being honest, the patience—to discuss it with him. Besides, the encounter with Nathan at the bar left her too confused and conflicted to want to talk about much of anything with her husband.

Lisa moves to the next slide. “In terms of the vaccine reactions: Mia Meyer has been transferred out of the ICU and is expected to be discharged in the next few days. Mateo Flores is in critical condition and his prognosis is guarded as of this morning.”

Benning holds her hand up. “Our offices are being inundated with calls,” she says, referring to city hall. “Mainly from families of kids who have already received the vaccine.”

“Ours, too,” Tyra says.

“And the national coverage is exploding,” Kevin says. “Fox News did a whole segment on the dangers of new vaccines this morning.”

“Fox, huh? What a shocker,” Angela says. Her voice is subdued this morning. Beyond the ravages of her illness, she looks defeated to Lisa.

Lisa looks around the table. “The next vaccination clinic is scheduled to open in less than ninety minutes…”

“You’re going to cancel it, right?” Benning asks.

“That’s what this group needs to decide.”

“There’s not much choice, is there?” Angela asks. “Who’s going to show up?”

“This vaccine works, though,” Moyes pipes up unexpectedly. “You saw the statistics. This meningitis outbreak has reached a tipping point. And the antibiotic prophylaxis failure represents another major vulnerability. More children are going to die. Probably many, if we halt the vaccination campaign now.”

“You might be right, Alistair,” Lisa says. “But so is Angela. Between the news of the second reaction and those gruesome photos of Mia going viral, even if we do run clinics, people aren’t going to come.”

“It’s odd, though, isn’t it?” he says.

“What is?”

“That there was no hint of any kind of delayed immune responses in all the previous Neissovax trials. Why are we seeing them now for the first time?”

“It’s still a pretty rare reaction,” Lisa says. “Maybe we’re only now hitting the critical mass of subjects required to see the signal. After all, we’ve inoculated over six thousand. Four times as many as were enrolled in the pooled trials.”

Moyes shakes his head. “Is it possible Delaware hid something in their initial results?”

The question reminds Lisa of Max’s insinuation about the coincidental timing of the outbreak and the new vaccine, which dripped with similar conspiratorialism, but she pushes that out of mind. “Why would they hide a complication like that in the trials? It’s far worse for it to come out during the clinical rollout when it’s too late for damage control.”

“At this point, we should consider all possibilities,” Moyes says. “Have we tested the vaccines involved in these two cases of skin eruptions?”

“Fiona Swanson, Delaware’s director of product safety, has retested the batches they came from. There are no concerns.”

“Not the batches, Lisa. I meant the individual vials.”

“How would we do that? They’ve already been dispensed.”

Angela sits up straighter. “There’d be residual vaccine left inside the vials.”

Moyes nods. “Or inside the syringes themselves.”

Before Lisa can answer, the door opens, and Ingrid leans her flushed face into the room. “So sorry to interrupt, Dr. Dyer,” she says quietly.

Realizing that it must be important, Lisa hops to her feet and steps out into the hallway.

“There’s a Dr. Sandhu looking for you,” Ingrid says. “He says it’s urgent.”

The name means nothing to Lisa. “From where?”

“The medical examiner’s office.”

Lisa ducks back into the conference room to ask Tyra to finish chairing the meeting, before hurrying into her office. Ingrid patches the call through.

“I am sorry to interrupt, Dr. Dyer,” Sandhu says in a British accent. “However, I felt this was rather urgent.”

“What is, Dr. Sandhu?”

“I’ve just completed an autopsy on a twenty-year-old male who died three days ago.”

“Died how?” Lisa asks with growing alarm.

“I’ve concluded the ultimate cause of death is Stevens-Johnson syndrome.”

“What’s his name?”

“Darius Washington.”

She doesn’t recognize it. “Did he die in hospital?”

“He never reached the hospital. The swelling in his throat caused an acute occlusion of his airway. He died at home. Of asphyxiation.”

“Oh my God…”

“I’ve obviously followed the recent news. The reason I am calling, Dr. Dyer, is that I also discovered swelling over his left deltoid that is consistent with a recent inoculation.”

Stunned, Lisa mumbles her thanks and hangs up. She immediately logs into the vaccination database on her computer. It takes only seconds to confirm that a Darius Washington received his Neissovax immunization at the first vaccination clinic on the campaign’s opening day.

The same one where Mia got hers.

Lisa clicks open the website that catalogs all the vaccination reactions. She searches for the names Darius and Washington but doesn’t find a match for either. Surely his friends or family would have known about his vaccination? Why didn’t anyone report him?

With this third critical reaction, Lisa recognizes that any chance of the first two being coincidence has been shattered. Moyes was right. How could those rashes not have manifested during the clinical trials?

She picks up her phone and calls Fiona.

“There’s been a third case,” Lisa explains as soon as Fiona answers. “This one didn’t make it.”

Fiona is quiet for a long