Personal Narrative: The Hot Zone
Nancy Jaax almost became infected when she tore her space suit while performing an autopsy on an infected monkey. Luckily she didn’t, but danger can happen around any corner. Even though Doctors new a lot about Ebola it was still very scary and unpredictable to work on. The beginning of the book gives the reader a very description of what Ebola is and does to its unlucky victims. “Ebola the slate wiper, did things to people that you do not want to think about.
In the Hot Zone, Richard Preston demonstrates how devastating Ebola and other filoviruses can be to large populations. In the book, Preston describes true events during an outbreak of Ebola virus at a Monkey facility in Reston, Virginia in 1980. He also gives background from other viral outbreaks in Africa in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
It was the last inning in our all-star game, and we were losing 10 to 8. Our team had 2 outs and we couldn’t get the third. Our pitcher was doing bad, throwing all balls, while all of us in the field were tired, ready to fall asleep at any moment. There goes another walk. They score again.
The central idea of Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone is that the outbreaks of many deadly hot agents are due to the oversight of humans. Preston conveys his message through detailed descriptions of simple mistakes that characters make. One instance of human oversight that he wrote about was the usage of dirty needles in the hospitals of Sudan, leading to a massive outbreak of Ebola Sudan. The virus “hit the hospital like a bomb” and “transformed the hospital at Maridi into a morgue” all because “the medical staff had been giving patients injections with dirty needles” (74).
The Hot Zone, written by Richard Preston, is an intriguing, and true, novel about the origins of the Ebola virus. It is a dramatic horror story about a deadly virus, first only found in the dense rain forest of Africa that somehow traveled thousands of miles to Washington, D.C. In only a few days, the virus spread and killed more than 90 percent of its victims. This book keeps you on the edge of your seat, in fear that yet another person will suffer from this terrible, contagious disease. The book as if it’s a nightmare, as if it were a zombie apocalypse.
What I read about Ebola, has genuinely terrified me and I have the irrational fear that I will catch the Ebola virus. What scared me the most was when Richard Preston wrote “If a healthy person were placed on the other side of a room from a person who was sick with AIDS, the AIDS virus would not be able to drift across the room through the air and infect the healthy person. But Ebola had drifted across a room. It had moved quickly, decisively, and by an unknown route. Most likely the control monkeys inhaled it into their lungs.
I discovered that only a few decades ago, East Africa was plagued with an alien filovirus that eventually manifested itself in the U.S. capital. As a result, federal forces had to handle the delicate monkey house situation without attracting much attention from the media and in the process courageous soldiers and scientists had risked their lives attempting to quarantine it. Their mission was successful and in the end the monkeys were all brought to the USAMRIID labs for further research on Ebola and its cousins. In addition, Preston’s analytical comparison between the origins of AIDS and Ebola unveiled a potential connection that could explain the diseases’ outbreaks in modern society. The majority, if not all, of the information I learned about the history of fatal viruses has come from reading The Hot
They did not dispose of them properly or sterilize the needles. EBO-Z was then spread throughout YMH, infecting staff members as well as patients” (Commission). This encounter shows how Ebola Zaire (EBO-Z) has been easily spread throughout the YMH and can ruin the human population. EBO-Z will eat its victim and lead them to a painful death. The earliest known outbreak was located at Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo, suggesting that all known outbreaks evolved from a Yambuku like virus after nineteen seventy-six.
This psychological assignment requires us to break a social norm. In my case, I decided to break an appearance social norm. I thought in something weird, but at the same time really funny. Therefore, I entered to my little walking closet and I took the most brilliant and extravagant high heels shoes that I found to wear them at a place when people usually used flip flops.
Bam, the runner hit the ball. She dropped the bat and ran to first base. Safe, she kept on running to second. As I watched her run I realize she wasn’t stopping at second, or third. Rounding third base, she sprinted to home plate.
Way back along time ago, I was minding my business playing with my best friend who I knew every since I was a little kitten. We would spend nights and days together and was always by each others side. This was all up until my best friend sat me down and told me the bad news.
I’m standing in the center or the room the only light that is in the room is the one following me, I hear her voice it’s so cold but so comforting to me. I see he standing in front of me her ghostly pale skin on her bones with her long fingernails and long hair always in her face, her dress torn and ripped at the bottom. She would scream at me in a high pitch I stood there staring at her trying hard not to move she moves swiftly but quickly to me she whispers in my ear “Your next, my child.” I heard other voices some laughing sinisterly and some repeating her. I closed my eyes I wake from my bed my pillow and sheets where wet from my sweat.
It was the darkest time of the night, right before dawn, when Nick quietly opened his front door and crept out into the street. He held a small lunchbox of personal items, such as pictures and small toys; and this lunchbox he vowed never to let out of his sight. He prepared for his two mile walk to the crossroad at the heart of his town. Playing the hopeful scenario of what could come from this fateful night, Nick became more and more anxious. After what seemed like an eternity, he arrived at the crossroad of Gleason and 57th.
By the way, “Ebola is an infectious and generally fatal disease marked by fever and severe internal bleeding, spread through contact with infected body fluids by a filo virus (Ebola Virus) whose normal host species are unknown”. En.wikipedia.org. As a result of
After a cold, hard winter, everyone looks forward to the summer. Having to live in perpetual summer may sound like paradise but as someone who lives in the tropics, I can assure you that it is far from that; more often than not, I am constantly sweating as I manoeuvre my way through sticky crowds and try to hide from the scorching afternoon sun. However, through the years I, like many others living in South East Asia, have honed down the art of summer to a science; after all, the average temperature for Singapore is a balmy 27ºC (81ºF) year-round. Did you know that eating spicy food is a common solution for alleviating the heat in this part of the world? Stay cool and look hot at the same damn time with these tips straight from the Equator: Work Up A Sweat (kind of)
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