Friday Fictioneers – The Experiment

~ neilmacdon
writers-life
PHOTO PROMPT © Jeff Arnold

I am aghast. “It’s monstrous,” I say.

He seems faintly amused by my outrage and turns from the keyboard with a shake of his silver head. “It’s necessary,” he says. “The way we stop this disease is to isolate the vulnerable and let the healthy catch it. Most will recover and when they do we’ll have a shield of herd immunity.”

“You can’t know that,” I say. “You’re running a terrible experiment with millions of lives.”

His mane tosses like a lion’s. “The peak will be sharp, but it’ll be short.”

Somewhere, faintly, a phone is ringing.

 

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here

82 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – The Experiment”

  11. Well, they’re all denying now that ‘herd immunity’ was ever muted – a week after it seemed to be policy. How considerate of Boris to inform us we’d have to be prepared to lose loved ones ‘before their time’, too. Cos that helps. Chilling, but I fear not too far from the truth, Neil

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  12. I’m thinking I heard something similar in a press conference recently. Makes you long for the days of kind comforting words, or, olacking that,ignorance. Information on a need to know basis.

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  13. Amazing that this wasn’t fiction, isn’t it! The Science was there all the time and Boris and Co finally heard it. However listening to Trump today we have another leader who gets bored with facts and just prefers to make things up….Staying indoors indefinitely strikes me as a good idea.

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  20. Timely piece. I hope someone somewhere is quietly making a note of all that is done, all the reactions to it, the timing of the course changes and the outcomes. We’re going to need this stuff so we’re better placed the next time.

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  33. I scratch my head at what comes out of many of the policitican’s mouths around the world. I hope we learn a thing or two, but I fear for how many will be lost because of their incompetency to handle the situation. Great piece of fiction with a non-fiction theme, Neil!

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      1. I’m not so sure… They’re on the top ten list of deaths per million inhabitants, worse than both the US and Brazil. Norway, who they usually can compare with, is number 79, Finland number 67. When Norway started acting, it was a lot worse than Sweden. Many deaths could have been avoided easily. That’s the thing with gambling, I guess… Sometimes you lose.

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