Deerfield Practices for a Disaster With Free Flu Shots

0

The kind men and women of the region who volunteered to staff and put on this free flu shot/rehearsal for a major catastrophe drill.
Some of the dozens of  kind men and women of the region who volunteered to staff and put on this free flu shot/rehearsal for a major catastrophe drill.

I marked my calendar months ago, and even had a robo call from Bernie Kubiak reminding me of Sunday’s event.  The free flu shot that I got while sitting in the comfort of my car was actually part of a bigger picture drill. A way of preparing in case there is a plague that everyone needs to be vaccinated for.

This is all sort of eery in light of the book I just finished, Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars.

This remarkable first novel tells a story 30 years from now, in a society that’s been decimated by a plague, that left only three percent of the people alive.  Hig lives by an airport, and uses his old plane to do reconnaissance flights so that he and his only friend, a gun nut named Bangley, can protect themselves from the marauders.   I bet this story would have played out that there were people  giving out shots but that sadly, their disease just ran away from them.

The army of volunteers was mostly female, ready to handle a flood of imaginary plague victims, or just those who wanted to avoid getting a bad flu this season. They all had big smiles and it was all a very pleasant way to prepare for the future. God help us.