The Deaf Pandemic

27th of February 2131, The Deaf Pandemic struck as the first case of Curse virus was reported. Ever since a new seasonal flu spread in 2118, all infected kept its infection latent. 13 years later, the infection returned. The Curse virus infected its hosts organs so aggressively that they'd completely shut down just after a couple of days, making survival in practice impossible unless you had access to a new set of donated organs. The reports of Curse virus grew quickly, and the latent infection would reactivate at minor infections such as colds. One after one, people died and the hospitals were powerless as its employees would refuse to expose themselves to any infections, and the only salvation of donor organs were way too inaccessible. Societies had to watch their people die at mercy of the Curse virus, until a vaccine was created.

The vaccine was invented in Stockholm, Sweden at Karolinska Institutet only three months after the first case of Curse virus. With the immense death rates and inevitable exposure, the need for a vaccine was urgent. As soon as it was approved, the vaccination began rapidly on the 14th of May. Adjacent European and Nordic countries would purchase doses from the small supply at KI, but there wasn't enough stock to export the vaccine all over the world. No other lab had successfully created any vaccine, or was even close. People watched how one part of the world diminished, while another was saved and remained. Soon enough, it all culminated in chaos. Since politicians couldn't provide the vaccine for their people, the people would take the matter in their own hands. Fleeing their own countries, entire nations of people would travel to Europe trying to get a hold of the vaccine. Airports, trails and roads became anarchic as everything named ethic and moral went out the window in the fight for survival. Just as if everyone had a ticking bomb taped to their chest, no one could know when their latent infection would reactivate and their life would be beyond saving. Securing the vaccine was crucial to the extent that no one else mattered, nothing else mattered. Not even the side effects.

The Deaf Pandemic received its name for a reason. Only a day after the vaccination began, people reported that they experienced a loss of hearing after getting their dose. They were told by KI that this was a normal reaction that would pass in a few days. But it didn't. And KI knew it wouldn't. In the late stages of the vaccine trial when human testing was applied, all test subjects ended up deaf. KI reported the results to the Swedish government and declared that the study would have to be completely redone due to the major complication the vaccine carried. However, restarting the entire study over again would give the Curse virus at least another three more months to conquer and who knows how those three months would unfold. On demand from the Swedish government, KI proceeded to develop their vaccine and mass vaccination started just a few weeks later. As long as possible, the devastating side effect were buried and not spoked about. Expectedly, within the first week of vaccination news picked up the loss of hearing and reported how citizens were worried about it never returning. This led to KI being forced to speak out about the issue and reveal that the vaccine did turn you genetically deaf. People were in shock, grief and rage when understanding that they'd forever lost one of their senses. The demand for the vaccine decreased drastically for a couple of days until KI had a new press conference convincing that the vaccine was absolutely necessary for survival. Thereafter, the vaccine was just as demanded as before, despite the fact that people now knew they would become deaf.