SUNDAY 1 MARCH
Off to the Bahamas for a conference on the immune system, metabolism and heart disease. Read a detailed piece in The Economist on COVID-19. Very sobering. It said the virus will test every government it comes up against. Another bit of scary news that the US and UK stock markets crashed this week because of COVID-19.
I land in Florida and all anyone can talk about is COVID-19. There is to be a huge music festival and they are wondering if they should cancel it. I fly on to Nassau (they pick these destinations to attract delegates). Met an old friend and scientific collaborator, Eicke Latz, from Bonn. He scared me. His colleague, a coronavirus expert, told him SARS-CoV2 will spread all over the world and won’t stop until 70 per cent of the world’s population is infected. And that in its wake it will kill a lot of old people unless we do something to stop it. I will remember the exact spot I was in when he told me this. Didn’t know what to do with that information.
THURSDAY 5 MARCH
Flew from Nassau back to Europe and straight to another conference in Estoril, Portugal. Changing flights in Heathrow I watched a news bulletin in a bar, where the WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: ‘This is not a drill … This is a time for pulling out all the stops.’
The conference is the annual meeting of the European Respiratory Society. All the talk is of SARS-CoV2 now. And especially at this conference, where all the European experts on lung diseases have gathered. During one of the scientific sessions, I saw on Twitter that Ireland has now had its first case of COVID-19, recorded on 29 February. A student in the east of the country who had arrived from Northern Ireland.
Then I got a phone call to tell me that someone in my lab was infected. What the hell, I said. Don’t be ridiculous. One of my postdocs is from Italy. He’d gone home to Verona for the weekend, come back and developed symptoms. Had a test and came up positive. My lab is now shut down and everyone has been sent home, including a transition year student, Fiona. This has to be seen as the height of irony. There’s me in the media going on about COVID-19, and now someone in my lab has it. I am stunned.
As I sat down for dinner in a lovely outdoor restaurant by the sea in Estoril my phone went again. Someone senior from the HSE called me to brief me. I asked how long the people in my lab would have to stay in quarantine. She said, ‘We don’t call it that. We call it social distancing.’ Then the Provost called to brief me. They were considering closing the whole building. Good God, is this the start? I hope my postdoc is going to be alright. I joined my fellow scientists and told them what was going on. Jaws dropped. They didn’t know anyone who had been infected yet.
FRIDAY 6 MARCH
Back from Portugal. The Irish Times said there have now been 13 cases, four of them coming from Northern Italy, one of whom is connected to TCD. The first confirmed case was actually on 29 February.
Went for a drink in Fitzie’s with Brian, my medic buddy. He was disturbed. Said he’d been hearing horror stories from a doctor friend in Bergamo, Italy. Crowded morgues.
Gig with The Metabollix, in the Dalkey Duck. We’ve been together now for 40 years … or so it seems. Began when we played in Dublin at a conference for immunologists in 2017. Bunch of scientists, medics and some real musicians, including our redoubtable lead guitarist, Chris. We’ve done loads of gigs at conferences but also in the Duck, where we’ve had a residency. The goal tonight is to to raise funds for Their Lives Matter, a charity in Dar es Salaam run by paediatric oncologist Trish Scanlan. It’s for a cancer facility for children, a tremendous cause. We did a gig for them before in Kilruddery in Bray that had raised a fair bit of cash. But now we want to raise more to bring with us, because we’re going to Dar es Salaam! Trish had asked The Metabollix if we’d be interested in going, and I’d bitten the bullet and said yes. Great cause, and the chance of an adventure to boot. So, I’d organised for us to go a few months ago, to do a fundraising gig there this coming St Patrick’s Day and also for the Irish embassy there. It’s going to be some trip!
Tonight was a mega gig. The place was heaving with people wanting to give money, and we raised over €2,500. We also rocked them to their very souls. Ciara Kelly sang with us as well – she is an occasional Metabollick. When the gig ended and the Duck closed, we headed over to Queen’s, which is open late, and crammed into a snug there for more shouting and roaring. A splendid time was had by all. And no talk of COVID-19. Even I forgot about it for a while.
SUNDAY 8 MARCH
Tony Fauci, the lead immunologist in the US and Trump adviser, said that it might take 18 months to get a vaccine. Trump said he likes the sound of a couple of months better. But I’ve reassured people that a company called Moderna are ahead of the pack, creating a vaccine ready to test in humans in just 42 days. I also talked about chloroquine, a drug I worked on in my PhD, that is being tested, and a new antiviral called remdesivir. I’ll keep telling people that science will save us. I don’t know how long it will take, but we’ll beat it in the end. We have to.
Phone call from one of the producers on Claire Byrne Live, asking me if I would ask the COVID-19-positive postdoc to go on the show on Monday. I called him up. He’s reluctant but I said it would be a good thing. He could be anonymous and tell people his experiences. Reassure them. I’ve said I’ll go on with him to help. He’s even more reluctant at the thought of that.
MONDAY 9 MARCH
With Maura and Dáithí on the Today show. Great old chat. About the virus, of course. I was going to tell them how a huge music festival had actually been cancelled in Miami and how we should cancel the St Patrick’s Day parade. But just before I came on, the news came in that it had been cancelled. Now we all know how serious this is. A moment for the country to think about. That headline will go around the world: ‘Irish cancel Paddy’s Day’.
Also did the interview with Claire Byrne. If someone had told me a few months ago that I would be on Claire Byrne Live talking to a postdoc from my lab, whose voice was distorted, about him being infected with a deadly virus …
He explained the course of events – he’d called his GP and had a rapid test. Once that proved positive, he was immediately taken to hospital and is now in isolation. He told the ambulance man that he was an immunologist and the ambulance man asked if he knew Luke O’Neill. Gulp. It all sounded good – rapid response, treated very well. He said he felt fine and was bored. What a strange business that he’s in my lab, the rest of whom are all still in quarantine.
Italy has gone into a national lockdown. Those scenes from Bergamo definitely scared everyone. They’re saying the rest of Europe is likely to follow. What is going on?
Because of the upcoming gigs in Dar es Salaam, The Metabollix had a practice. We booked a studio in Dundrum with Eoin, a new drummer. He is sound. We ran through 15 numbers and it was good fun as usual.
Took a break in the middle and checked my phone. An important result for Inflazome came in. We had given a patient in Australia with a rare inflammatory disease called CAPS our new drug, and guess what? It worked. The drug stopped all the inflammation in his body. This rare disease is caused by a mutation in the gene for the protein NLRP3. The mutation makes this protein over-active and that is what causes all the inflammation. It can be a horrible disease – eye inflammation, sore joints, skin rashes. And all caused by the mutant NLRP3. He took our drug and within a day his symptoms began to disappear. Fantastic! And to think it started in my lab in Trinity. This bodes well for all the other diseases that involve over-active NLRP3, like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
I went back into the rehearsal room with a pep in my step and rocked out with the band, playing ‘Johnny B. Goode’ loud, Chris killing us with his lead-guitar breaks. As ever, playing gives me total joy, transporting me somewhere else.
Read an interesting report today on COVID-19. A choir that held a practice in the State of Washington led to over 80 per cent of those attending becoming infected. Good Lord. Yet another example of a high attack rate. This virus is spread by air, and it must be propelled out of people’s throats by singing. Makes me nervous about that Dalkey Duck gig – such a huge crowd and lots of loud singing.
WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH
On Pat Kenny – update on COVID-19. Walking up to the Newstalk studio, two people recognised me. This hasn’t happened before. Taxi drivers would often recognise my voice, as they have heard me on the radio with Pat. But this is different. Damn Late Late Show! I wonder will COVID-19 be the dominant theme for me and Pat? Surely not – won’t people just be bored of it?
A grim milestone today: the first death in Ireland from COVID-19. An elderly patient in Naas General Hospital. Sent a shiver down my spine when I read about that. What will happen next? And the WHO has finally declared COVID-19 a pandemic. What took them so long? They said that it is now in 114 countries, with 4,000 dead and almost 120,000 infected. And there is no sign of it slowing down.
THURSDAY 12 MARCH
Interesting phone call with Dr Susan Evans, an Australian doctor working on severe menstrual pain. She has evidence it might involve NLRP3, the target for our drug. She wants to collaborate with Inflazome and maybe even do a clinical trial. I said we’d be delighted. I love it when we collaborate with fellow doctors and scientists. She is convinced that blocking NLRP3 will help women, not just with menstrual pain but also with endometriosis, another painful inflammatory disease where there are few options.
I’ve started bumping elbows with people instead of shaking hands. Weird, but I guess this will be the way of things for a while. Got a taxi over to the Children’s Hospital in Crumlin. Trish Scanlan had asked me to collect some boxes of chemotherapy to bring with us to Dar es Salaam. She often asks visitors to do that, as drugs are in short supply there. I got six boxes, medicine that will save children’s lives. Better not lose them.
In the taxi on the way back into Trinity I heard on the radio that schools will be closing until 29 March. Good Lord. It’s definitely getting serious. Rob, our keyboard player, called me to say he can’t come to Dar es Salaam. He has young kids and needs to be in Ireland for them. Completely understand. I wonder should the band go after all?
Went on The Tonight Show with Ivan Yates. He asked if people can get COVID-19 more than once. I said probably not. The immune system is supposed to protect you from reinfection. (The word ‘immune’ was actually coined from the Latin immunitas, which means ‘exemption’. Soldiers who returned to Rome were granted immunitas from paying taxes. The word ‘immune’ was coined in the 1800s to describe how once people have certain infections, they are exempt from getting them again.) But it got me thinking: we just don’t know for sure if having COVID-19 will protect you from getting it again.
Went home exhausted – and then saw that stock markets worldwide have suffered their greatest single-day fall since the crash of 1987. The world would appear to be in freefall. I thought of the Police song ‘When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around’. Can’t help but feel that the world is indeed running down. Or, in the inimitable words of Marwood in Withnail and I, we are entering the arena of the unwell.
FRIDAY 13 MARCH
Woke up to the news that global stock markets have crashed. Appropriately enough, it’s Friday the 13th. Not that I’m superstitious or anything, but this virus …
Today we leave for Dar es Salaam. Got up early. Got a text from the airline. The return flights had been cancelled. It said to go to the airport and either reschedule or get a refund. I thought about telling the band not to come, cancel the whole damn thing. But then I thought, We have the chemo for the kids, the syringes, the cheque for €2,500 for Trish and the gigs for her to raise more money … To hell with it. We’re going.
Got to the airport and met the band. Discussed with them whether we should just not go. Went to the ticket office and they rescheduled our return flights, returning through Istanbul. The band are delighted – they’ve never been to Istanbul. And so we boarded the plane. As we took off, I felt a bit relieved for having got that far. The worries fell away as we took off. A long journey ahead.
SATURDAY 14 MARCH
Landed in Dar es Salaam at 3 a.m. this morning. Coming through customs, I was pulled over. The customs guy asked me what was in all the boxes I had in my big suitcase. I said drugs and syringes, then paused for effect to see what he would say. I added that they were for the children’s hospital in Dar es Salaam and showed him a letter that Trish had given me. He laughed loudly and let us through.
The Irish embassy had sent a driver. We felt like rock stars. He drove us to the hotel. I fell into bed but the rest of the band went for a swim. Got up at 11 a.m. and went down for breakfast. Trish was there. She was happy we’d come but looked worried. The Tanzanian government had issued an order to limit gatherings to 100 people. She’s had to curtail the number of people coming to the St Patrick’s Day ball and moved the venue to the rooftop of a friend’s house. She said it would be fine. Her friends were planning all kinds of Paddy’s Day decorations.
We spent the day hanging around the hotel, swimming in the pool, drinking cocktails. Had a bit of a laugh with Trish remembering how in early January we had met up to discuss the plan when she was back in Dublin. Me, Brian and Chris gate-crashed a dinner in a vegan restaurant where she was meeting up with her old clinical pals from Crumlin. They are a great support for her in Tanzania, helping with diagnosis and sending supplies. We weren’t too impressed by the vegan food, although I’m sure it was top notch. I had chili sin carne and Brian had BBQ cauliflower, which tasted like cauliflower with BBQ sauce. We went to Burger King after for Whoppers …
The weather was hot and humid. The pale Irish skin of the band looked very fragile in the Tanzanian sun. Lots of sunblock. Had to leave the poolside to do a podcast interview with David McWilliams, who couldn’t quite believe I was dialling in from Tanzania. At 7 p.m. we headed to the venue for the gig. The PA was delivered and set up. We did a soundcheck. Eoin says the drums weren’t great and Chris was horrified by the electric guitar he was given. Without Rob, we had no keyboards to fill out the sound. But, as Chris said, as long as we have my right hand pushing out the chords, we’ll be fine.
It was boiling – I’d say the temperature was about 90°. It was like playing in Vietnam … not that I’ve ever played in Vietnam. We got them all up dancing. In the middle, we presented Trish with the cheque and the meds. We played a bit of everything, getting them on the dancefloor with ‘All Right Now’ and finishing up with ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’. The sweat kept getting into my eyes, stinging them, and Chris broke three strings. But we did it.
This was our setlist:
ALL RIGHT NOW (A)
USE ME (EM)
OH DARLING (G)
BE MY BABY (E)
OLD TIME ROCK ’N’ ROLL (G)
TWIST AND SHOUT (D)
TREAT HER RIGHT (E)
FIFTY WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER (Em)
PENCIL FULL OF LEAD (D)
PREACHER MAN (E)
VALERIE (EB)
NO DIGGITY (F#)
HONKY TONK WOMAN (G)
STORMY MONDAY (G)
SUPERSTITION (E)
PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC (E)
LET’S DANCE (E)
BACK IN THE USSR (E)
BREWING UP A STORM (AM)
IT’S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP (A).
We went back to the hotel, with that after-gig glow. It’s such a buzz! Playing loud music to a crowd is just something else. Went to our rooms to freshen up. I got back down to the bar first and ordered a gin and tonic.
And then a text came in from Brian. Two people who had been down in the Dalkey Duck the previous Saturday had tested positive for COVID-19. What the actual fuck? The band assembled and I told them the news. Nervous laughter. I knew immediately what we had to do. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘we have to get back to Dublin as quickly as we can.’ Talk about buzzkill. The guys were looking forward to a night on the town. I said any of us might be infected and we might infect people here.
I went on to SkyScanner on my phone and within five minutes had booked five tickets from Dar es Salaam to Dublin via Doha the next day. I had visions of huge hassle trying to get flights, so the relief was enormous. I told Trish, who said she would send over some N95 masks. I’d never heard of N95 masks. I knew we couldn’t meet her again. If she were to get infected and bring it to the hospital that could mean tragedy for the sick children.
The band called their families with the news. Eoin’s girlfriend runs a pub in Temple Bar. When he came off the phone he told us the pub was closed, as are all the pubs in Ireland. My jaw dropped. Pubs in Ireland closed? How can that be?
We lounged in my room in quarantine. The lads played a bit of music. Taylor, our bass player, was told not to fart.
MONDAY 16 MARCH
We got a taxi to the airport in almost complete silence. Masks on, we checked in. The airport was empty. I saw a headline on a big screen: ‘Dow Jones Industrial Average has the single largest point drop in its history.’ Feels like the world is falling apart.
The flight from Dar to Doha was almost empty. We had to leg it to the gate for Dublin. There was a guy waiting for us to get us through everything as quickly as possible. It felt like we were leaving Saigon after the Vietnam war. We passed loads of duty-free shops full of luxury goods. It was so quiet. I thought, Is there an apocalypse coming? On the flight to Dublin we had four seats each so we could stretch out and sleep. No food was served and everyone wore masks the whole time.
WEDNESDAY 18 MARCH
Landed back in Dublin. My Twitter has gone crazy. I sent some tweets about COVID-19 and hundreds and hundreds began following me. Over 10,000 now, up from 2,000 when I left for Dar es Salaam. Coming through the airport we were quizzed about where we had been. When I said Doha, the woman said we need to self-isolate for two weeks. I said, ‘What?’ She took my phone number and gave me a leaflet.
I got a taxi home. The taxi driver told me how the country was now in lockdown. Isn’t quarantine good enough? I thought. Are we in some Hollywood movie? It certainly sounds like that. Shops and schools are closed, and people have been told to stay home. I told him I would have to self-isolate for two weeks because I’d been in Doha. He edged away from me towards the windscreen.
He said how the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, had made a speech on 17 March during his US trip for St Patrick’s Day. People are saying they will remember where they were when they heard it. I checked it out on my iPhone. He said how today’s children will tell their own children about how there were no St Patrick’s Day parades in 2020. He said how Ireland was in the midst of a global and national emergency – a pandemic. How cases would rise to 15,000 by the end of the month and then even more beyond that. Large public gatherings cancelled; pubs shut; curtailing of weddings. How elderly people would have to stay home, but that they would have food supplies – he said this would be called ‘cocooning’. He reminded everyone how not all superheroes wear capes – some wear scrubs and gowns. How it would be a shared enterprise of all humanity that finds a treatment and a vaccine that protects us. The words made me feel a chill. I’ll remember where I was when I read them – in a taxi driving from Dublin Airport. It will be some time before I head back to the airport, who knows how long.
I checked my phone for what was happening in Tanzania, fearful that I was patient zero. Some cases had been reported in the north of the country. None in Dar es Salaam yet. I hope things will be alright there. Trish had said the health system is so bad that there could be a huge death toll if COVID-19 struck. She said the one thing the country had going for it was the young population. It’s clear now that COVID-19 is mainly a disease of people over the age of 65. I’ll watch it closely.
Got back to the house at 4 p.m. Life at home begins.
THURSDAY 19 MARCH
Still exhausted after the Dar es Salaam trip. But – Stevie came home today from Edinburgh, because of the lockdown being imposed in Scotland. So great to see him! Joy unbounded. Prime Time called, wanting me on. I said I have to stay home. They said they could film me in the garden. That’s how weird things are now. I’m happy to give information on what’s going on. I think we scientists have to step up now and play our part. They filmed me a good distance away. Asked me about where we’re at with COVID-19. I gave the update: Ireland now has over 500 cases. The instructions from the government are for everyone to socially distance, stay home, wash hands. I said we can beat this together and that the science was ramping up to get a vaccine and treatments. I said the amount of science going on is unprecedented. I hope that people will feel less scared. I really believe science will beat this, but I know there will be bumps along the way and I don’t know when. This makes me a little nervous, like everyone else, but then I remind myself of how great science is, and then I don’t feel so bad … probably because science is one of my favourite things.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are reporting the start of vaccine trials. That was quick! It’s all very uncertain. We never got a vaccine for the common cold, which can be caused by a similar virus. But progress was made against SARS, although a vaccine was never approved. What makes us think that COVID-19 will be any different?
Saw Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the news and he laid it on the line: ‘Once again, our message is test, test, test.’ Simple, right? Surely we can use testing and tracing to get this virus under control?
The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville played to an empty theatre – the first time since 1925. Must have been very weird.
SATURDAY 21 MARCH
This media thing has taken off like a rocket and I am just about holding on. A lot of people asking me – seven requests today. RTÉ Radio One. 98FM. A bit of pressure, as I have to make sure I get the facts right. But it’s a privilege to be asked and I want to help people. Feel a sense of utter weirdness.
Following stuff on Twitter and in the media about COVID-19. It’s spreading like wildfire. Such stress out there. And then there’s the conspiracy theorists and people accusing the experts of scare-mongering, exaggerating everything, claiming it’s a ‘casedemic’. Global cases have reached 250,000 with 10,000 deaths. I believe these facts.
A woman sent a nasty email, saying she’d seen me on Prime Time and that I was just too offhand about such a serious thing. A man emailed to say I had only one agenda, and that is to scare people out of their wits. Another person tweeted to say I was only doing it for the fame. It can be hard to be forgiving of nastiness, but I think it illustrates that people are scared.
Tony Fauci was on CNN. I met him once, in 2009. I was the ‘Immunology Guru’ at the National Institutes of Health, where Tony heads up the Immunology Institute. We had a great chat. He said something about how scientists should engage with the media. Try and base what you say on data. If you don’t know something, just say it. And remember – it’s not about you, it’s about what you’re trying to explain in as clear a manner as possible. I must remember these three things!
Netflix and YouTube have reduced their video quality in the EU to prevent internet gridlock because so many people are at home. McDonald’s is going to shut all its restaurants in the UK. Oh, and the Olympics have been postponed to summer 2021. Things should be well over by then. Hold on to that thought. And there are lots of reports of people raiding supermarkets. Jokes about supplies of toilet roll running out. I guess there’s something of a herd mentality, with people being afraid of scarcity.
TUESDAY 24 MARCH
Today, Ireland went into full lockdown. Everyone staying home. Do not go beyond two kilometres. No social mixing outside your own bubble. Yet again, what the fuck?
WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH
Did a Science Gallery podcast today. I’ve been asked by scientific journals to give updates on what we work on in my lab. They’re called reviews. I’ve divvied them out to my lab as it will give them something to do as they are all still at home. I worry about them. They need to progress their PhDs and build careers. How will they manage? The reviews will cover what we’re working on in the lab every day. A big topic is how cells of the immune system use nutrients in different ways to other cells, especially when they are in overdrive. And how we might stop that to help treat inflammatory diseases. And of course, how my favourite inflammatory protein, NLRP3, is such a great target for anti-inflammatories. Scientific journals can’t get enough of that.
Gave a talk by ‘Zoom’ for the Royal College of Physicians on COVID-19. It’s just not the same. Can’t get the buzz off the audience. Don’t like it, but I did it. Mary Horgan is president, and she gave a good talk too.
Was supposed to be at the Dutch Society for Immunology today, giving the keynote lecture of the conference. It was to be held in a town called Noordwijkerhout. Cancelled. All the conferences are being cancelled one by one. My actual world closes in, but my online world goes into hyperspace.
A lot of talk about hydroxychloroquine as a therapy for COVID-19. Trials are running. This is reasonable, as it has been shown in the past to be an anti-inflammatory and have antiviral properties. We’ll see. It’s not as if hydroxychloroquine was ever approved for another respiratory virus. But we need as many shots on goal as we’ve got. It’s a phrase I keep using in the media too. Hope people don’t get sick of it.
And the death toll in Ireland has now hit 19.
SUNDAY 29 MARCH
The Taoiseach has announced a national stay-at-home order. In the top right-hand side of the TV screen it says ‘Stay at Home’ or ‘Fan sa Bhaile’. Unprecedented. Even during the 1918 pandemic there was no order for people to stay home, which was one reason for the high death rate then.
Lot of emails thanking me for giving updates. I’d say it’s 90:10 positive, which is good. I would stop doing it if I felt it was counterproductive or not useful. Such an appetite out there for information.
Stevie has been accepted into Gonville and Caius College. It’s the one that was in Chariots of Fire! Wonder if he can run fast?
We had a big Zoom call in Trinity today with all my immunology colleagues. We discussed seeking funding from Science Foundation Ireland for a centre to work on COVID-19. My colleagues Kingston Mills and Aideen Long will co-lead it. All our labs have something to offer. My lab will work on itaconate, the natural brake we found on the immune system. We’ll now examine its antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects. There were a couple of discoveries last year showing it could kill Zika virus and also influenza, so you never know. No lab work at the moment, though, as the labs are still shut. Bah.
Read about the neurological features of COVID-19 – loss of taste and smell are common. This happens with other respiratory viruses, but it seems especially prevalent. Sent a shiver down my spine. What if this one damages the brain? So much we don’t know still.
TUESDAY 31 MARCH
Some good news today. Sitryx, the other company I co-founded back in 2016, has signed a deal with Eli Lilly for $50m. This will give Sitryx lots of funds to explore new anti-inflammatory drugs that we are trying to develop. Sitryx might also be involved in our COVID-19 work, which would be great. They’ve expressed a strong interest in it. Having them on board would be superb, as they bring a lot of expertise and might help take any discoveries we make to patients, which of course takes time but is the ultimate goal of all this.
Approximately 2.6 billion people (one third of the world’s population) are in some form of lockdown. Good Lord. Working from home is a challenge. Spending all day everyday looking at a screen. If this virus had come along even 10 years ago this would not be possible. I guess people would have just gone to work, and we’d have had to accept a level of death and illness as immunity built up and we waited for the vaccine to arrive. Read about how in previous pandemics the workers still had to work in the fields to keep the food supply going, spreading infection as they went. A new virus keeps one third of the world’s population at home on their computers. No one saw that coming now, did they?
Another staggeringly weird month is over. The heat of Dar es Salaam. The media frenzy. The virus, the virus, the virus.