books44 Chapter 36 Incubation and Quarantine Period
Chapter 36 Incubation and Quarantine Period
Gu Nanfeng's father works in biopharmaceuticals, his mother is a professor in the field of chemistry, and even his grandparents on both sides are experts in these areas. Although he chose to study new materials, it didn't prevent him from being exposed to these fields all along. So when he heard Professor Lin's words in the isolation ward, he could roughly understand the reasoning behind it, and a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders.
As soon as he relaxed his shoulder, Pei Sihao, who was standing behind him, smiled slightly, then quietly turned around and deleted the suicide note from his phone behind everyone's back. He didn't want to leave these ridiculous words and let Gu Nanfeng find out anything.
The other patients in the ward didn't understand any of this. They only heard that if they didn't mutate after 8 hours, they would be basically safe. They felt more at ease, which was much more reassuring than having their hearts hanging in suspense for an indefinite period.
Qin Yuan and Lin Yun dragged two blankets from the hospital bed and made two makeshift beds on the floor in the room. After all, they were soldiers and it wasn't appropriate for them to compete with ordinary people for beds. Gu Nanfeng even comforted Old Wang at the door, and Old Wang reluctantly followed Professor Lin and his team, saying that he would come to see him again in eight hours.
"Current research indicates that the incubation period for the virus in the rain is eight hours. We just need to wait through those eight hours, and everything will be fine." After seeing Professor Wang off, Gu Nanfeng turned back to comfort the others in the ward.
"Mmm," the others in the ward responded. However, despite this, after so many years of virus prevention and control, everyone knows that the incubation period of a virus is always an unknown, and no matter how accurate the scientists' predictions are, unexpected events can always occur.
Lu Yuan took out seven candies from his pocket and gave one to each person. If Qin Yuan and Lin Yun hadn't been completely unaware of anything, and if there hadn't been surveillance cameras in the room, he would have given each of them a cup of milk tea to stimulate their dopamine levels and make things a little easier for everyone.
"Ha, Lu, you're something else, carrying candy with you." Qin Yuan happily unwrapped the candy and stuffed it into his mouth. Candy is an important military supply now, and they never kept any of it among the supplies they brought back from previous raids.
"I didn't expect to get candy." Lin Yun smiled and joined in to lighten the mood. The college students had already calmed down, so it wouldn't do for the two of them, soldiers, to be sighing and complaining. "This is important supplies. If you can get out, remember to report it if you have low blood sugar."
Lin Yun's kind reminder warmed Lu Yuan's heart. They didn't ask where his candy came from, nor did they ask him to hand it over. It was more like they were talking to someone in the monitoring room. Lu Yuan guessed that the base was in dire need of this. He wondered if he should try to donate some salt and candy to the base after he left the isolation room.
After Professor Lin and his team left, the first batch of infected people in the isolation ward were cleaned up by the soldiers who came later. After disinfection, the isolation ward was adjusted, and less than 30 people remained. They were quickly assigned to different isolation rooms.
Enduring five hours of sleep alone can be easy or difficult. Qin Yuan and Lin Yun, on the other hand, were quite easygoing and fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Plus, they had a rare single room, so they wouldn't be woken up by other people's snoring. In the five-person team, Zhong Qiang was also such an easy person; he quickly fell asleep as soon as he got to his isolation room.
Once in his isolation room, Yang Xiao leaned against the hospital bed in a daze. The Tang sword he had been holding was taken away because it was a dangerous weapon. They said they would return it to him if he came out safely. Although he didn't believe it, there was nothing he could do now, so he could only sit there in a daze, feeling frustrated.
When Pei Sihao was assigned a hospital room, he requested to be in the room opposite Gu Nanfeng. Not long after Qin Yuan learned that his brother was the commander of the Beijing Municipal Command, the provincial and municipal government command headquarters at the base found out. They tried to persuade him several times to arrange an office job for him, but he refused. He only made this request during this quarantine period, and the command headquarters, of course, dared not refuse. Therefore, he was able to stand at the door of the ward and see Gu Nanfeng through the observation window.
In fact, Gu Nanfeng was the first to be called out to arrange a ward. He didn't expect Pei Sihao to ask to stay in the room opposite his. When he saw Pei Sihao being led into the room directly opposite, he inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief.
Lu Yuan originally thought that since everyone else had been moved out, he would stay in his original room. However, the disinfection work in the isolation area was very rigorous, and he was also transferred. All the rooms of the first batch of peak patients had to be disinfected in a unified manner, and there were also many pieces of equipment in the new ward that he did not understand.
Since arriving at the base, Lu Yuan has been a light sleeper. Now, without Zhong Qiang's snoring, he fell asleep after sitting on the bed in the isolation ward for a while.
"Bang bang bang!"
Lu Yuan was awakened by a loud banging sound from the room next to his, accompanied by the "clucking" sound of zombies howling. He took out his old touchscreen phone and glanced at it. He had slept for about three hours. According to what Professor Lin and the others had said, about five hours of exposure to infected air was the second peak time for zombification, and indeed, some people were turning into zombies.
Soldiers, dressed in protective suits and equipped with oxygen machines, arrived quickly, and the people in the next room were swiftly cleared. Lu Yuan didn't know who lived next door, so he stood in front of the door, looked through the isolation window, and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that it wasn't someone he knew.
Actually, seeing familiar people turn into zombies is more painful than turning into a zombie yourself.
Lu Yuan, who was woken up, suddenly couldn't fall back asleep. He thought about using the walkie-talkies they had been given at the base to ask the others how they were doing, but then he worried that everyone was resting, so he gave up and instead played an old-fashioned match-3 game on the bed to pass the time.
Fortunately, no more zombie cases appeared in the isolation ward in the following hours. Professor Lin arrived as promised six hours later. Although it was still midnight, Professor Wang was worried and came along anyway.
The other researchers who came with him quickly separated to collect data from each room. Only then did Lu Yuan realize that the equipment in the rooms was high-tech equipment for detecting changes in their bodies. It was because the city center hospital had this equipment that it was initially chosen as the best location for the safe base.
Professor Wang finally found Gu Nanfeng's isolation room and, seeing that he was safe and sound, the old man's heart was finally at ease. However, this relief lasted only two minutes before his old friend put his mind at ease again.
“We’ve weathered the 8-hour incubation period. Let’s observe for a while longer.” Professor Lin stood with his old friend in front of Gu Nanfeng’s ward and looked at the data from all the isolation rooms that his assistant had brought. The data was quite stable. He wanted to say that if they didn’t turn into zombies by 8 a.m., they could basically lift the restrictions. But before he could say anything, Professor Wang next to him jumped up and down.
"Why do we still need to observe him? Didn't you say eight hours? Oh dear, how am I going to explain this to Old Gu?!" Professor Wang was extremely anxious. It wasn't that he couldn't wait for those eight hours; what he feared was another eight hours after those eight. This uncertainty about whether Gu Nanfeng would be alright was what caused him the most anxiety.
"Don't worry, Professor. Professor Lin said the previous data showed an incubation period of 8 hours. We're all fine, so there shouldn't be any problems. Continuing to observe us now is for the sake of the others in the base," Gu Nanfeng reassured Professor Wang. "This time it was also my own carelessness."
"Sigh." Professor Wang had no choice; he couldn't trouble his old friend, so he could only leave silently.
Gu Nanfeng asked Professor Lin if using the walkie-talkie in the isolation area would affect the monitoring equipment. After learning that it would not, he respectfully saw the professors off, then returned to his bed, took out the walkie-talkie Lu Yuan had given him, and began communicating with the other members of the five-person team.