. Attributed to Helmuth von Moltke ("The Elder"), 1800-1891
Friday 20th March - Friday 20th December 2020
The only thing that changed for Caleb Whitehead when the Covid lockdowns began in late March, in New Zealand, was the location of his office. Before the twenty-first of March, he was commuting an hour each way to his office in central Wellington, after the twenty-first, his commute to his home office was all of two minutes, five if he picked up a coffee on the way. He had been married to Ellie for five years and they now lived on a lifestyle property, a smallholding, of two hectares, sixty kilometres north of Wellington.
Caleb first met Ellie in 2010 when they were both stationed in Afghanistan. Caleb was a Captain in the 1st New Zealand Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment and Ellie was an Ensign Medic in the New Zealand Navy. She had been on duty at the base hospital when Caleb brought some of his team who were injured into the hospital. Caleb still thinks it was at this point he started to fall in love with Ellie. They took time to get to know each other, only being able to meet up occasionally during the first three years as they were not often in the same country. Their relationship really took off when they were both stationed back home for an extended time in 2014. When Ellie left the Navy in 2015, Caleb proposed, and they married soon after. Caleb left the Army in 2016 and now worked as a freelance Project Manager. Ellie had retrained as a chef and in late 2018 she'd opened her own cafΓ© in the local beach area. Sadly, when the lockdowns set in Ellie had to close the doors, she had no idea if or when they would be able to re-open.
Caleb first heard about DuoHalo and the associated high death toll at the end of April, not that anyone called it that, at that time everyone was saying it was just a different variant of Covid. He had finally been able to talk with one of the senior managers based in Sydney, Australia who was associated with the project.
"We're not really being told anything definite," Samantha told him, "Any time there's an update on TV it's just keep isolating, follow the protocols. What I do know is that whatever it is, it seems to affect men far worse than women. A couple of my friends caught Covid, and so did their families. One couple are recovering but the other, my friend's on the mend, but she's lost her husband and teenage daughter. We've lost about a third of the workforce over here, mostly men. Our IT team has been decimated. We have no idea if and when any of them will return and we've only been able to find a few replacements. We're still working but with a much-reduced capacity." she said.
Caleb tried to Google for information on the Australian situation but couldn't find much. What little he did find talked about deaths but not in the numbers Sam mentioned. Caleb decided to see whether his old military contacts could tell him anything. He called to his old commanding officer; fifteen minutes later he hit the End Call button. Now he was feeling even more frustrated and more than a little concerned. His old boss had told him that the government and the Ministry of Health were aware of the situation in Australia. It had been exacerbated, he said, because the federal government and certain state governments had been slow to react to Covid and that had allowed a new variant to also take hold. The word he was getting from his contacts over the ditch was that everything was now under control. He also said that the Chief of Defence Force had reiterated that the government were confident that this particular variant would not reach New Zealand shores. It was this last statement that caused him the greatest concern. This felt like a classic example of Finagle's Law that Anything that can go wrong, will--at the worst possible moment.
Caleb sat thinking for several minutes before calling Ellie, who would be somewhere about the property. He picked up the walkie-talkie that lay on his desk and pressed the Speak button. It was close to four in the afternoon when Ellie returned as, when they spoke, Caleb had said it wasn't urgent. Ellie was dressed in her usual work clothes for that time of year, a sleeveless t-shirt that showed off the golden colour of her skin on her arms and shoulders and beneath her waist she wore shorts, exposing her toned legs to his hungry gaze. Her blonde hair was in its usual ponytail, her face smudged with dirt from the work she'd been doing outside. Her blue eyes sparkling as she looked back at him, her thick nipples making their presence known even through the sports bra she wore under her t-shirt. Ellie would have liked to go braless when working on the property, particularly in warmer summer months but her bounteous 36D breasts made that impractical on a regular basis. She reserved that for special occasions when she was able to taunt Caleb. She knew the effect it had on him when she didn't wear a bra and she loved to tease him as the outcome was usually a very satisfying orgasm, or three, for her.
"So, what is it we need to talk about? You want to buy some more camera gear?" Ellie asked, her eyebrows raised.
Caleb laughed sheepishly., "Not this time," he said, "No, this is more serious." He grabbed two beers from the fridge. "Let's go sit on the patio and talk."
When they were seated Caleb shared his conversation with Sam, with Ellie. He relayed what she had told him and the conclusions he had drawn from her statements. He recounted the conversation he'd had with his old commander, and he told Ellie of his concerns, that he was somewhat worried that overconfidence would lead to mistakes. Finally, he told her about the limited amount of information that he'd found on the internet and its speculative nature.
"Do you think we're at risk?" Ellie asked.
Again, Caleb sighed, "Honestly I don't know. I think they are suppressing information, but I don't know what. It's not just the Australians, I think our government, probably every government, is blocking any mention of this new strain. There are rumours and theories out there but who knows which are real and which are just shit stirring."
"So, what should we do?" Ellie asked.
"Keep calm and carry on," Caleb snorted. "No seriously, I think we should make sure our stock of protective gear is good, and maybe grab some extra items at the supermarket each time we go. Make sure we have a good supply of animal feed. We should limit our trips off the property as much as we can. That's about all we can do until we know more. We're about to move to alert Level three, so I think we should just exercise a bit of extra caution."
"Okay, sorted," Ellie said, getting up from her chair and moving to Caleb, she sat in his lap.
"Now," she said, with a glint in her eyes, "I need a shower and then we should eat."
Over the next six months, nothing much really happened. New Zealand moved between the various alert levels with increasing levels of freedom so that by October the country was almost back to normal. There were still protocols in place but the most visible sign of the loosening of the reins was that mask-wearing was the exception and not the rule. Caleb and Ellie chose to follow the protocols, only leaving their home when absolutely necessary, wearing a mask whenever they did go out. They stocked up on those items their home couldn't provide. They continued to regularly search the internet for any information on the virus but all they could find was information about existing Covid variants, like Delta and Omicron. There was nothing about the more deadly strain.
The news out of Australia was grim and it was becoming widely known in New Zealand; almost everyone had family, friends or colleagues who lived and worked in Australia and the losses were starting to affect more and more of the New Zealand public and people were becoming angry that having lost lots of friends or family members, they could not travel to grieve with those who remained. The New Zealand government had been forced, at the end of May, to acknowledge what was happening not just in Australia but in other parts of the world.
"What I want to reiterate," the government spokesperson said, "is that our borders are locked and controlled. The Ministry of Health has confirmed with the Prime Minister that New Zealand's border protocols are more than sufficient to prevent any new strains of Covid reaching our shores." This message was repeated at every subsequent press conference or governmental announcement.
Saturday 21st November 2020
The news that most of the deaths that had occurred over the last eight or nine months were not due to Covid but a different virus, DuoHalo, broke late on the twenty-first. It was Samantha who told him of what was actually going on in Australia. It was close to five when she called him on Microsoft Teams on his mobile.
"It's not Covid," she began without preamble when he accepted the call. "It's a virus called DuoHalo. The authorities issued a statement a couple of hours ago. This bloke, a Lieutenant-Colonel Tiberius Marshall I think it was, told us about the magnitude of the situation, how many men and women had died, especially men." Sam's voice caught in her throat. "But, he also said, there was a cure. He then turned the mike over to some other bloke, I think he was a scientist, who explained how the vaccine worked. He said that a man needs to be paired with several women to gain enough immunity to survive. I mean, what the hell's that all about? The scientist also talked about some other things but, to be honest, a lot of it went in one ear and out the other after the multiple partners' details. Anyway, the other fella, Marshall, got up again. He told us the first step would be to complete the Oracle survey which could be accessed on the government website. The page has been overloaded and we haven't been able to get in yet." There was a note of panic in her voice. "President Pelosi spoke to the American people earlier this afternoon and we followed soon after. I wish I knew what was going on back in the UK, I've still got family there."
