Face Mask

It had been a direct flight from the mainland of China to the mainland of the U.S. and back again with none of the trained professionals taking the time to sleep. Instead, they now sat around the cramp conference table of the 707, drinking coffee, chain-smoking nervously, all studying and discussing what each in their respective fields had noted during their investigations.

These were some of the most intelligent, highly-regarded, well-trained and respected people in their disciplines; Nobel prize winners, university professors, hospital department heads, private pathologists and virologists and federal medical professionals. And when finished with the third round-table discussion, they did it some more.

At first they called it Bat flu, then Wuhan flu, the China flu, and 2019-nCoV before settling on the fanciful sounding, “Novel Coronavirus.” This made this disease sound as if it had been created in a petri dish, which it had, in a fun-filled lab, which it had not, and thus much less scary, which was the final consensus.

Once deplaned, each embarked back to their separate lives, their separate homes, separate families and friends and their separate work places, carrying in pockets, jackets, briefcases and binders, their face mask labels reading, “Made in China.”