15th
The Quarantine of Iceland
So the geographical isolation, the coldness, and all those other factors which have made life in Iceland so hard in the past have turned out to be a gigantic boon in 2019. Iceland is ReDs Research HQ for the molecular biology crowd. There was a pretty good bioindustrial base here from deCODE genetics and spin-off companies and the pharms which grew various things under glass that you might not want running around in the wild and which, by virtue of the climate, could not. No accidental release of insulin-grapes in a country with no vineyards.
One airport, and an absolutely ferociously strict quarantine protocol. Boats crews go into quarantine on their own boats while the cargo is unloaded and reloaded, and if nobody is sick after a week, the cargo is opened. Same thing at the airport - arrive, check into a quarantine-rated hotel, wait. At least they take bandwidth seriously in those places.
The international community throws in some money, and Iceland handles the additional costs of maintaining the defensive line so that if ReDs gets abruptly worse - well, at least there’s a fallback position to do the science from.
Brutal, but nobody knows how this will turn out. It’s a unique place - educated first world society, in the middle of nowhere, in a tough enough climate to keep it clear of most secondary vectors. You make do with what you have.
Street reports next week I hope.
