In the early days, no one had fully appreciated just how infectious the virus was. People that fell sick were transmitting the disease long before the symptoms developed. The mortality rate for the infected was much higher than anyone had ever seen before. People went into hospital struggling to breathe and did not come back. Scientists said they believed the virus was a mutation from a non-human virus that had 'jumped' from another animal. They had yet to pinpoint the source or how it had been transmitted.
It was an airborne virus, capable of surviving in free air for half a day and up to a month on certain surfaces, depending on the temperature of the environment.
More and more people were dying, social distancing was encouraged and then enforced with a lockdown. People were instructed to remain in their homes. Anyone breaking the rules was punished with greater and greater severity. Those with a genuine need were required to obtain authorization online.
As front-line services deteriorated, it became harder and harder to enforce. Members of the public that were caught outside without permission were initially fined, repeat offenders imprisoned. But as services crumbled drones were commissioned to help implement the lockdown. The first drones were unarmed; their role was to identify and follow any perpetrators until the police or military arrived.
People booked slots to travel for essential business, their phone sending a signal to any drones in the surrounding area to give them safe passage. Anyone travelling without permission was detained, until the emergency services arrived, or shot trying to escape. The ambulances would take people for testing and isolation. They never came back.
Politicians said that it was an emergency protocol, a necessary inconvenience that would only last until a vaccine was found. The system appeared to be working, for the first time, the rate of new infections began to fall.
Then the power went out.
Nicolaides, Nicholas: - Nicholas Nicolaides was born in North London to an English-Irish mother and a Greek-Cypriot father. He attended primary school in England before moving to Cyprus where he attended an English school. After completing his national service he returned to England and worked on Tottenham Court Road for several years before studying Economics at Middlesex University. He joined Reuters and worked as a Project Manager for many years, first in the UK and then in the Netherlands before working around continental Europe. He returned to the UK but continued to work on overseas projects in Europe, the Middle East and Africa before he moving to Australia, where he lived for the next ten years. He returned to London a few years ago. Nicholas Nicolaides wrote and illustrated 'Zero One' over three months during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown in London.
