Summary

In Chapter 31, Barry compares the way the flu died out to the way the Martians were killed off by viruses in H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds. He describes that at first, the natural process made the virus more lethal. Then the people in the communities through which these viruses passed developed some immunity. After a run of six to eight weeks in typical communities, the disease died out. There were individual cases after that, but generally the end was abrupt. The virus also mutated to a less severe strain. When the army’s chief investigator George Soper conducted an in-depth review of the pandemic, he determined that nothing had changed except the virus. He found that the only effective treatment for the disease was isolation.

There was a third wave when the virus mutated again. In San Francisco, public health...