FanFare

Based on the bestselling novel, this post-apocalyptic saga follows the survivors of a devastating flu as they attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew – while holding on to the best of what’s been lost. [more inside]
posted by Stanczyk on Jan 13, 2022 - 58 comments

A medical historian narrates the last century of scientific struggle against an enduring enemy: deadly contagious disease. Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu to the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 “parrot fever” pandemic, through the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last one hundred years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms. In The Pandemic Century, a lively account of scares both infamous and less known, Mark Honigsbaum combines reportage with the history of science and medical sociology to artfully reconstruct epidemiological mysteries and the ecology of infectious diseases. We meet dedicated disease detectives, obstructive or incompetent public health officials, and brilliant scientists often blinded by their own knowledge of bacteria and viruses. We also see how fear of disease often exacerbates racial, religious, and ethnic tensions―even though, as the epidemiologists Malik Peiris and Yi Guan write, “‘nature’ remains the greatest bioterrorist threat of all.” Like man-eating sharks, predatory pathogens are always present in nature, waiting to strike; when one is seemingly vanquished, others appear in its place. These pandemics remind us of the limits of scientific knowledge, as well as the role that human behavior and technologies play in the emergence and spread of microbial diseases.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis on Feb 1, 2020 - 1 comment

In 1918, the Italian-Americans of New York, the Yupik of Alaska and the Persians of Mashed had almost nothing in common except for a virus--one that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times and had a decisive effect on the history of the twentieth century. The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth--from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis on Mar 13, 2019 - 2 comments

During a mission in 1918 to attend the birth of Carmen Amaya, Irene falls ill with the Spanish flu. New undersecretary Susana orders (against regulations)) that Irene be retrieved and returned to the Ministry, risking widespread exposure to a highly contagious disease that once killed millions and for which there is no vaccine. Soon, more personnel begin to show flu symptoms and the Ministry is forced to close its doors to prevent the disease from being spread through time. [more inside]
posted by zarq on May 30, 2018 - 6 comments

In the penultimate episode, following the revelation that her father is alive, Jessica sets off to find him, with hostage Milner in tow. Meanwhile, Wilson and Leah analyse their information and discover the far darker and more terrifying secret it holds. [more inside]
posted by Gyan on Aug 7, 2014 - 8 comments

A shocked Dugdale reluctantly agrees to harbour Jessica, but who should be scared of who? When Dugdale visits Jen and Alice in a secret prison it's clear he will do whatever The Network asks in order to keep his family [more inside]
posted by Gyan on Jul 30, 2014 - 19 comments