This year's bug is only a slight variation, but in the long run, a fatal flu pandemic is inevitable. A highly contagious virus, in a form unknown to medical science, sweeps through Massachusetts. As many as 6,000 people die. Four times that number are hospitalized. A million people seek medical care, but doctors, nurses, and others on the front lines of treatment fall ill themselves.
Patients overwhelm hospitals, emergency rooms, and clinics.
Hotels and schools become makeshift hospitals. Fear of contagion empties offices, malls, movie theaters, restaurants. Daily life deteriorates into confusion. Across the United States and around the world, people become infected by the millions and die by the hundreds of thousands. Despite a higher than average rate of influenza cases this season, this year's bug is only a slight variation on a virus vaccine-makers have seen before.