Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19) is a highly infectious disease first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. It has resulted in an ongoing global pandemic. As of November 12, 2020 more than 52.3 million cases have been reported across 188 countries and territories, resulting in more than 1.28 million deaths.
Fever 1793 by An epidemic of fever sweeps through the streets of 1793 Philadelphia in this novel from Laurie Halse Anderson where "the plot rages like the epidemic itself" (The New York Times Book Review). During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out. Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease.
Conversion by From the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane comes a chilling mystery--Prep meets The Crucible. It's senior year at St. Joan's Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys' texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can't. First it's the school's queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan's buzzes with rum∨ rumor blossoms into full-blown panic. Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen--who's been reading The Crucible for extra credit--comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . . Inspired by true events--from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school--Conversion casts a spell. With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what's really happening to the girls at St. Joan's?
Agnes at the End of the World by The Handmaid's Tale meets Wilder Girls in this genre-defying novel about a girl who escapes a terrifying cult only to discover that the world Outside has succumbed to a viral apocalypse. Agnes loves her home of Red Creek -- its quiet, sunny mornings, its dusty roads, and its God. There, she cares tirelessly for her younger siblings and follows the town's strict laws. What she doesn't know is that Red Creek is a cult, controlled by a madman who calls himself a prophet. Then Agnes meets Danny, an Outsider boy, and begins to question what is and isn't a sin. Her younger brother, Ezekiel, will die without the insulin she barters for once a month, even though medicine is considered outlawed. Is she a sinner for saving him? Is her sister, Beth, a sinner for dreaming of the world beyond Red Creek? As the Prophet grows more dangerous, Agnes realizes she must escape with Ezekiel and leave everyone else, including Beth, behind. But it isn't safe Outside, either: A viral pandemic is burning through the population at a terrifying rate. As Agnes ventures forth, a mysterious connection grows between her and the Virus. But in a world where faith, miracles, and cruelty have long been indistinguishable, will Agnes be able to choose between saving her family and saving the world?
Last Star Burning by "Rich and timely." --Aprilynne Pike, #1 New York Times bestselling author "Incredibly immersive." --Kirkus Reviews "A gripping tale of trust." --Booklist To escape execution for a crime she didn't commit, sixteen-year-old Sev is forced to run away from the only home she's ever known in this "richly imagined" (BCCB, starred review) post-apocalyptic debut novel from Caitlin Sangster. Sev is branded with the mark of a criminal--a star burned into her hand. That's the penalty for being the daughter of the woman who betrayed their entire nation. Now her mother's body is displayed above Traitor's Arch, kept in a paralyzed half sleep by the same plague that destroyed the rest of the world. And as further punishment, Sev is forced to do hard labor to prove that she's more valuable alive than dead. When the government blames Sev for a horrific bombing, she must escape the city or face the chopping block. Unimaginable dangers lurk outside the city walls, and Sev's only hope of survival lies with the most unlikely person--Howl, the chairman's son. Though he promises to lead her to safety, Howl has secrets, and Sev can't help but wonder if he knows more about her past--and her mother's crimes--than he lets on. But in a hostile world, trust is a luxury. Even when Sev's life and the lives of everyone she loves may hang in the balance.
Station Eleven by 2014 National Book Award Finalist A New York Times Bestseller An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them. Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
Very, Very, Very Dreadful by From National Book Award finalist Albert Marrin comes a fascinating look at the history and science of the deadly 1918 flu pandemic--and the chances for another worldwide pandemic. In spring of 1918, World War I was underway, and troops at Fort Riley, Kansas, found themselves felled by influenza. By the summer of 1918, the second wave struck as a highly contagious and lethal epidemic and within weeks exploded into a pandemic, an illness that travels rapidly from one continent to another. It would impact the course of the war, and kill many millions more soldiers than warfare itself. Of all diseases, the 1918 flu was by far the worst that has ever afflicted humankind; not even the Black Death of the Middle Ages comes close in terms of the number of lives it took. No war, no natural disaster, no famine has claimed so many. In the space of eighteen months in 1918-1919, about 500 million people--one-third of the global population at the time--came down with influenza. The exact total of lives lost will never be known, but the best estimate is between 50 and 100 million. In this powerful book, filled with black and white photographs, nonfiction master Albert Marrin examines the history, science, and impact of this great scourge--and the possibility for another worldwide pandemic today.
Pandemic by Throughout history, several deadly pandemics brought humanity to its knees, killing millions, and recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika took coordinated international efforts to prevent them from spreading. Learn about factors that contribute to the spread of disease by examining past pandemics and epidemics, including the Bubonic Plague, smallpox Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and Zika. Examine case studies of potential pandemic diseases, like SARS and cholera, and find out how pathogens and antibiotics work. See how human activities such as global air travel and the disruption of animal habitats contribute to the risk of a new pandemic. And discover how scientists are striving to contain and control the spread of disease, both locally and globally.
Ebola Outbreak by Ebola Outbreak covers the history of the Ebola virus, the devastating 2014 epidemic, and the quarantine controversies that captured national headlines, exploring how the fear of a disease can sometimes be as dangerous as the disease itself. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
Disease in History by "Although infectious diseases have been responsible for more deaths than have wars, historians often tend to brush over the influence disease has had upon history. To date, disease has been and remains humankind's greatest and most dangerous villain. At times the victims of epidemics have reached into the tens of millions. Arguably, it has played a dramatic role in shaping the winding course taken by history. Yet despite the advances and widespread use of immunizations and antibiotics, local and global outbreaks of infectious diseases remain a repeated occurrence. (The World Health Organization reported 198 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2013 resulting in nearly a million deaths. In the same year, it noted that 35 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS). Disease in History describes several of the epidemics that have significantly influenced historical events. It explains how the discovery of germs in the last two centuries was able to reverse millenia of superstition and ignorance in the treatment of infectious diseases. Finally, it explains how and why the world of microbial organisms has been able to thwart many of medical science's greatest efforts to eliminate, or, at the very least, control them. "