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[Nova]

—NOTHING—

[DaveIronside]

Freya could think of a million things she'd rather be doing than heading to an AKO meeting, it was her brother's baby but at this time of year it wasn't probably the best idea for him to go. The method of arrival however was something Freya believed the meeting may have been fair payment for. She sat in the engineers seat of the Ekra-Badger as it skipped along just above the waves at a tremendous rate. She'd have asked for a go at the controls but the giant beast of a machine was probably not as much like a plane as she imagined. In the rear of the giant fuselage where the rest of the Morelanders she was bringing with her, of course there was Rebecca Jarrett, the Princesses Chief of Household, she was sat chatting with two of the Red Legionnaires who manned the flying boat. Strapped in towards the rear looking at her laptop was Dr.Rufus Maddison
, the nations Health Minister who was enjoying a conversation with Lord Lucas Osman, one of the nations leading biomedical scientists, if not one of the top in Mundus.

"HRS Vellicious, this is Ironside Two, ETA five minutes expect water landing 500 meters off your starboard and prepare for boat transfer over" the pilot called in as they came up on the co-ordinates given, Freya could spot the blip on the radar and before long the grey blob on the horizon materialised into a ship. The pilot flew a circuit around the Vellicious and touched down just as intended. The four Morelanders watched as two Red Legionnaires pushed an inflatable motorboat down the slip way at the rear. The four clambered aboard, Freya and Rebecca more gracefully than the other two. "Vellicious, delegates are inbound" the Legionnaires gunned the engine and the RHIB shot out the rear and swung around the line up along the Vellicious, using the starboard side net the Princess and her Chief of Household nimbly clambered aboard, it probably wasn't the most elegant of arrivals a Princess had ever made to a meeting but it was certainly rather impressive. Dr.Maddison was rather less graceful, while Rebecca had to half drag Lord Osman aboard. Freya dropped her jacket back down to the Red's and waved them off and watched as they headed back to the Ekra-Badger. "I believe we're expected" the Princess turned to face the welcoming committee.

[The Young Pope]

Bretonnia had so far been lucky to say the least, with no reported cases of the buponic plague appearing on the radar as of yet, however that didn't mean that President Lavaud had his concerns for the overall well-being of his nation, Alba Karinya as well as the entirety of Mundus. He deeply appreciated the fact that his Heyran brothers wanted to hold a emergency meeting at this time of crisis and couldn't of course ignore the distress call; It was thus up to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Health and Human Services alongside a team of professional medical experts and other advisors to embark to the HRS Vellicious, greeting the wlcoming commitee in the process.

[Achkaerin]

Crown Prince Manius Silverwood, stood aboard the RVNS Lionheart as the Vafleon vessel headed towards the meeting point, the soon to be King of Vafleon - well he'd be King as soon as there was time to actually arrange the coronation was taking a brave step in going to this meeting himself for a fair few reasons but there was some importance even if there was something in him that wasn't entirely confident this was more his sister Catrain's field not his. Accompanying the Crown Prince was Major Caroline Dawes, officially she was in the Achkaerinese military as a lawyer but she was on secondment to the Vafleon forces to sort out their military justice system, given the broader implications that might come up at the meeting Manius had wanted someone to give sound advice with him.

It wasn't long before the pair were on the Vellicious, they introduced themselves and followed to the meeting room, Manius going over what the health advisors had told him, Vafleon hadn't been hit by it yet but that didn't mean a thing in the bigger picture of this, he knew the need to take advantage of the calm while they could.   

[DaveIronside]

"Back in East Moreland we will be imposing a 72 hour lock down of public buildings, stores will be shut, public events cancelled. The idea will be to try and isolate the virus so that it essentially burns itself out" Dr. Maddison explained, "With that regard any person entering our nation will find a health screening taking place, essentially temperature taken and anyone thought to pose a risk isolated until blood samples can be taken." It was a rather thourough method but should work.

"As for anti-biotic production" Lord Osman began, "The process is not a quick one, we're looking at the need to clear tanks, sterilise them, grow cultures, ferment and refine." The fermentation process takes at best three days, we're looking at potentially at best a week if the processes go as best they can, two weeks if not, and then the issue is that some people will not be able to take the drug anyway. We're looking at some loss of life being unavoidable. I concur with Dr.Maddison that the best course of progress is a 72 hour lock down. With luck that'll limit the spread, then existing stocks could well be enough." Clearly this little outbreak would be a nice money spinner for OsmanTech, one of Mundus biggest manufacturers of pharacetecul drugs, but that was no longer his concern all business dealings where the remit of his daughter Joanna now.

"You've heard the Morelander plan, 72 hour lock down starting in 24 hours." Freya nodded her approval, "Our Army will be on the streets should need be."

[The Young Pope]

"Of course, Bretonnia shall indeed be of assistance in this matter. We've already begun with the necessary procedures, it was just a great timing and circumstance to confirm as of now to confirm this. The Bretonnian Republic has already implemented extra security preventions in order to combat this threat, although we fear that it's only a matter of time before the disease could penetrate our defences and infect the citizens..." the Secretary of Health and Human Services said, with the Secretary of State in full nodding approval.

[Yolotan]

(OOC- so just lets pretend Vaguzia already was here)

"In Vaguzia we already have closed public buildings cancelled big events and in the big cities we have closed some of the banlieues where risk is high, only our most specialized doctors can come in and out. Further more our biggest pharmacy and healthare company, Ornati Health will help with everything they can." Minister of Heathcare Carmen Santuzza  said

[The Young Pope]

As the meeting was about to continue, the SHHS received a phone call. "Oh God...what, how...This can't be...". The SS looked worryingly on the colleague, fearing that the worst had finally come. The SHHS made a signal to confirm the SS's suspicions..."It seems ladies and gentlemen that we spoke a bit too soon, the Buponic Plague has finally made its first marks on our Republic; the National Guard and local authorities are currently containing public order as we speak, but as this meeting's being held, solutions are now more than paramount. If this keeps going on in the long run, AK's and Cotf Aranye's main financial centres will be taken out into action, crippling Bretonnia's economic capablities as well with disastrous consequences. President Lavaud thus counts on all of us here to find the ultimate solution...

[DaveIronside]

Freya was pretty confident based on what she had heard this thing wouldn't be like the outbreaks she'd read about in her history books at school, it would burn itself out pretty soon and the lack of personal hygene in the past wasn't the same issue they had today. "I commend Minister[1] Therz for wanting to put in place various initiatives like this. However at this time East Moreland will oppose this addition, the reason for that being three such oppurtunities already exist. The Joint Emergency Team is currently only supported by seven nations and does much of the work you are proposing this new body sets up. Add to that the CTO established the Mundus Health Organisation a while back and this is open to non-CTO members however I believe its charter could do with some updating and if I got a commitment from this organisation that all will join I'd be willing to handle that. Furthermore the CMA has part of it's charter measures to have an emergency medical organisation, which is also connected to the Joint Emergency Team. By setting up a forth you will be splitting resources, our nation already gives the vast majority of our international aid budget to the Joint Emergency Team, so we would be faced with a problem, take funds away from JET which have always done sterling work when asked, or not be part of this new organisation. JET has a reputation for excellent work, look what it did during Zimalian Fever, the situations in Mavrosia and Uppsala, it has saved countless lives, I will not support a potential weakening of their support and instead urge all members who are already not to join JET and support either the Mundus Health Organisation or the CMA equivalent."

1.	or whatever her title is

[Achkaerin]

"With all due respect that is the most impractical idea I think I could have heard." Manius said "For several reasons:

1) Assuming this happens at an airport you are suggesting that a person comes off a flight and has a blood sample, then proceeds through to luggage, Passport Control and Customs and at that point is presented with the results of the test? That's impractical, I'm not that well versed on blood tests but my understanding is that most test results take around 24 hours to come back, with some taking longer than that. Are you suggesting that tourists spend 24 hours in a Heyran airport waiting for results?

2) Time consuming - A 747 aircraft has a maximum capacity of 660 people, so 660 people step off an aircraft in wherever they go for their tests. The person conducting that test is going to be doing more than simply sticking a needle in the arm. They are going to have to take information such as name, nationality and a medical history of sorts, that is going to take time to do safely so let's say ten minutes per person to do the paperwork and the drawing of blood, that means six people per hour so that's a total of 144 people seen by one position within a 24 hour period which means that you need a minimum of four positions to clear just that one flight in terms of drawing blood within a 24 hour period, as it would take four and a half days for one position to draw blood from the entire flight. Added to which you've then got, assuming a busy airport, more flights landing, this creates a backlog which means you have more people coming in than going out and that will eventually and inevitably reach the safe capacity of the airport terminals and that puts people at risk.

3) Damage - Any nation applying this would have to apply it across the board meaning at every point of entry, the hassle of getting into the country then becomes so much that what is intended to protect actually ends up hurting them because it kills off tourism, it potentially even kills off trade and that hurts economies, the nation would be isolating itself.

4) If there's a plague, people are likely to want to put distance between themselves and it, this measure would prevent that plus a plague isn't exactly going to stop at the border is it?

5) Not everyone is going to want to give a blood sample - what are you going to do when someone says "My religion forbids me from giving blood"? You can't force them to give the sample and you can't take a sample without their consent because that is an assault, so you'd have to say "No test no entry" which would be a form of discrimination and could see countries implementing this being hauled through the courts."

[DaveIronside]

"We live in a world with thousands of different diseases, different viruses and the like. Many of which require specialist tests so which ones exactly do you do? While it may be all well and good for a small nation to do this it is highly impractical for us to do so. As a result we shall not be implementing any tests beyond times where there is a specific medical threat. We will not back up our airports and cost ourselves huge sums of money for something that will have a slim chance of stopping future outbreaks. The bubonic plague for example that we are currently fighting is capable of being carried by fleas. It could well for example have got into our nations on packages of cloth, in animal transportation or even a trouser leg, as such how does taking a blood sample stop this spread? Simple answer is it will not. Now clearly Heyra is permitted to impose whatever entry restrictions it wishes....so far as they fit in with the AKO charter, but I must at this point advise that it has long been my brothers policy to have entry requirements to our nation as being on a reciprocal basis, so should you start these tests on those entering your nation we would be forced to do so on those entering East Moreland from your own and with Heyran citizenship.

Now as for how we solve this we take the fight against disease global. JET contains the ability is required to respond to outbreaks of disease, carry out vaccination programmes and the like. If we stop diseases ever leaving the area they first outbreak then we have little worries. I suppose a good comparison is the phrase a good defence starts with a strong offence. If we are proactive in fighting diseases at source the impact at home is limited. As we currently support three initiatives based on this we will not support a forth that replicates what we already do. Our support for JET shall continue, we are an active member of the Mundus Health Organisation and the biggest contributor to the Global Childbirth Initiative. We're doing our bit to fight disease and feel that unless we wish to impact people's travel experiences negatively or waste our funds an AKO group is one we shall not support."

[Achkaerin]

Caroline narrowed her eyes slightly.

"If I may interject." she said "Princess Freya is correct with her points, it is to all intents and purposes impossible to stop the spread of a disease using such a measure, it's also very difficult to stop a naturally occurring plague spreading in advance, you simply react when the first cases are reported.  Now what you could as an organisation do is agree to share intelligence regarding terrorist activity, that may at least take steps to prevent a terrorist attack that releases a biological agent, that is the event that is preventable in advance if you have the relevant information. But if you're going to fight disease then JET is the organisation to go to, two Safraen outbreaks are testament to that, Uppsala is testament to that."