I Am Diagnosed as a Medical Titan

"Inside the hotel, all housekeeping, front desk, and security personnel who had contact with a Mexican businessman named Mark must be quarantined."

After arranging for the hotel’s containment, Lin Zhenhua continued:

"Also, deploy the traffic police department’s system immediately for a city-wide search for a taxi! The driver’s surname is Lin; he was a close contact of Mark. Once the vehicle is located, secure both it and the driver. This driver has very likely already developed a severe fever. Instruct the frontline officers to wear N95 masks, maintain a safe distance, and call a negative-pressure ambulance to the scene as soon as the target is secured!"

After hanging up with Old Chen, Lin Zhenhua immediately buzzed Secretary Wang’s extension.

"Xiaowang, immediately notify the director of the Provincial Center for Disease Control. Tell them to take their most elite epidemiological investigation teams and station them at Affiliated Hospital No. 1, the Provincial People’s Hospital, and City Eighth Hospital! All medical personnel who have had contact with those three critical patients must immediately upgrade to the highest level of personal protective equipment. They are strictly forbidden from moving between departments!"

"Sir..." On the other end of the line, Secretary Wang was clearly taken aback by the sheer scale of the response. His voice was hesitant. "This is such a massive undertaking. What if..."

"There are no ’what ifs’!"

Lin Zhenhua cut him off. "And another thing—keep a close eye on Jiang He. The moment his sequencing report is done, fax it to me immediately! My current containment measures can only be limited. Whether we can activate the major contingency plan for the entire Canton Fair depends on the final decision from the Capital City."

Caught between protocol and the front line of saving lives, Lin Zhenhua had resolutely chosen a middle path.

Without crossing any red lines or sparking city-wide panic, he chose to place his utmost trust in the young man named Jiang He.

...

「At almost the same time, a thousand miles away in the Capital City.」

In the office of Xu Wenpei, Director of General Surgery at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, a fax machine was steadily spitting out one page after another.

On the first page, the BLAST comparison results were displayed in stark detail:

North American classical swine flu (HA), Eurasian avian-like swine flu (NA, M), and human seasonal H3N2 flu (PB1).

A reassortment of four whole gene segments!

Although Xu Wenpei was not a virology expert, his solid medical background allowed him to instantly grasp the gravity of this report.

Jiang He hadn’t lied to him.

’This kid... is he really just a junior in college?’

’He opened Pandora’s box and finished the viral sequencing in just a few short hours? Isn’t that a little too outrageous?’

There was no time for such thoughts.

Xu Wenpei stuffed the report into his briefcase, snatched the trench coat from the back of his chair, and bolted out of his office.

He got in his car, started the engine, threw it in gear, and floored the accelerator.

The car sped straight for the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Changping District.

The National Institutes for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researcher Shu Yuelong had just finished breakfast in the cafeteria. He was strolling leisurely into the office building, thermos in hand, when he ran smack into a frantic-looking Xu Wenpei.

"Well, Old Xu! What brings you here so early in the..."

Shu Yuelong had just started to greet him with a smile when Xu Wenpei, without a word of explanation, grabbed his arm and dragged him into an empty meeting room on the first floor.

Along the way, Shu Yuelong protested, "Hey! What’s—hey, wait, huh?"

BANG.

The door slammed shut.

Before Shu Yuelong could snap out of his confusion, Xu Wenpei had already unzipped his briefcase and pulled out the sequencing report.

"Old Shu, no time to explain. Look at this! It came from Yangcheng overnight."

Shu Yuelong set down his thermos and took the report, his expression skeptical.

After just a few glances, his relaxed expression instantly froze.

"A quadruple reassortment?"

Immediately, his expression grew visibly grave as he rapidly flipped through the raw FASTA sequence data that followed.

The more he read, the more his heart pounded with dread.

"Where did this data come from? A local CDC branch? That can’t be right. I didn’t get any alerts on the internal network this morning!"

"It’s not from a local CDC. A clinical medical student at Affiliated Hospital No. 1 ran it overnight in a borrowed lab at Sun Changming’s oncology institute."

"A student? Isn’t that a violation of protocol?"

"The sample was completely inactivated with guanidinium thiocyanate right in the hospital ward. From a biosafety perspective, it’s flawless! Old Shu, is this really the time to get hung up on that? Look at this data! Look at the chromatograms! Does this look fake to you?!"

Shu Yuelong fell silent.

The data was practically perfect.

The sequencing quality was exceptionally high.

This was definitely not something a student could fake by just cobbling together data from a random database.

"Has the epidemiological chain been confirmed?"

"Yes. Patient zero is likely a Mexican businessman who checked into the Yangcheng Westin Hotel three days ago. The translator and a cleaner who had contact with him have both suddenly developed severe pneumonia. They’re currently intubated and receiving emergency treatment at the Provincial People’s Hospital and City Eighth Hospital, respectively. Standard oseltamivir treatment has been completely ineffective."

A deathly silence filled the meeting room.

A short incubation period, an extremely high rate of severe cases, and no response to standard antiviral drugs...

Combined, these factors perfectly matched the profile of a pandemic strain.

After a long silence, Shu Yuelong finally said with great difficulty, "Old Xu, this isn’t according to protocol... The regulations state that we need the Yangcheng CDC to send the viral strain to the Capital City for us to isolate, culture, sequence, and verify ourselves..."

"By the time we go through all the steps to get the strain sent up here for isolation, culturing, and sequencing, it’ll be too late! Two weeks is more than enough time for this virus to spread exponentially through the two hundred thousand people at the Canton Fair."

The meeting room once again fell into a dead silence.

Xu Wenpei took a deep breath and solemnly pushed the report across the table to Shu Yuelong.

"I, Xu Wenpei, take full responsibility for this report. Old Shu, take it, now. Use the National CDC’s internal fast-track channel and report directly to the Director! If this all turns out to be a false alarm... then it will be because I, Xu Wenpei, was blind and misjudged the situation..."