1855 United States Tycoon

Although both Gray Stone and Donald didn’t understand Scrooge’s approach, Scrooge was correct too many times. Therefore, including them, they all adopted the need to understand Scrooge’s approach. Execution, if you don’t understand, you should also execute it, and deepen your understanding in the implementation. Moreover, now the Macdonald family has too much money to spend. Scrooge has always been relatively frugal. In terms of spending money, he can't even catch up with the Morgan family, which is far less expensive. Now even if the deal is not profitable. As far as the amount of money is, you can completely regard it as Scrooge's money to buy a happy one. Anyway, now MacDonald has money.

However, in August of this year, the first batch of pioneer troops of the United States Expeditionary Force arrived in France and began training. The United States General Pershing also quarreled with the British and French over the issue of independent command of the US military. During the delegation, the second outbreak of the Spanish flu finally arrived.

...

"Your Excellency Marshal, our offensive plan may have to be terminated." A staff officer told Marshal Fuchs, the commander of the French army. The plan is to launch an offensive."

"Paul, is the situation so serious?" Marshal Fuxi was taken aback. Marshal Fuxi didn't know that the flu began to appear in the army. Someone reported the situation a few days ago. However, in that era, Some infectious diseases in the army are also normal. And these problems are not impossible to solve, such as those antibiotics from United States, the effect is very good. In just a few days, how could this disease suddenly develop to such a point?

"Your Excellency Marshal, First Army, Third Army, 30% of the soldiers have developed high fever symptoms, and the situation is still getting worse." The staff officer replied.

"Damn flu!" Marshal Fuxi cursed, "It seems that the plan of attack must be postponed. Fortunately, it's just a cold. I think in two weeks, the situation should get better."

Generally speaking, colds, including the general flu, are very contagious, especially in densely populated areas such as the military, which can infect more than half of the people at once, but most colds, even without medicine, are very contagious. In two weeks, he can basically recover. Therefore, Marshal Fuxi thinks that this is nothing more than postponing the offensive plan for a while, and it is not a particularly big problem.

However, the flu this time completely exceeded Marshal Fuxi's imagination. After two days, all troops sent telegrams calling for help. These telegrams outlined an extremely terrifying picture:

All troops are beginning to have deaths due to influenza infection, and the proportion of deaths is as high as 6 to 8%, and more troops have begun to have more patients.

"Your Excellency Marshal, the situation is really terrible now." Staff Officer Paul said.

"What did our doctor say? Is there no use for antibiotics or anything else?" Marshal Fuxi asked. As an experienced commander, he certainly knows how severe the epidemic is to the army. It is no less than the loss of a major battle.

"Your Excellency Marshal, according to our medical scientists, the influenza virus that caused this pandemic is a completely new variant. We don’t yet know any drugs that can treat it very effectively. Antibiotics are against bacteria. The virus has no effect. The people in United States claim that they have a medicine that originated in the East to fight the virus, but we don’t have a storage of this medicine..."

"Have our experts come up with any solution?" Marshal Fuxi asked.

"Dr. Swan said that the virus is spread through the air, so he suggested that we immediately wear masks to all soldiers, or simply let them wear gas masks at ordinary times. In addition, all soldiers who have been infected must immediately Be quarantined to avoid more infections." Paul replied.

"Then immediately arrange for the purchase of masks and treat all those who are already sick... Ah, yes, Paul, how many percent of the soldiers in our front-line combat troops have not caught a cold?" Marshal Fuxi asked.

"From 3% to 30%, the situation of each unit is different." Paul replied.

"Is this serious? If the Germans launch an offensive at this time, it will be really troublesome." Marshal Fuxi said, "We make a plan to let other second-line troops come up first and take over their defense zones. Replace all of them. All the people who have come down are isolated. In addition, the troops who succeeded them must be prepared for epidemic prevention. All accommodation facilities must be disinfected, and masks or gas masks must be worn for 24 hours..."

...

What Marshal Fuxi was worried about was actually what Marshal Hindenburg was worried about, because there were also large-scale influenza infections in the German army. Today's German army is doing the same thing as the French army. Naturally, it is impossible to attack the French army or anything. Forget it, because of this flu, the whole front suddenly fell silent. Really There is no war on the Western Front.

The flu first broke out in the army, but it was not in the army that brought more terrible consequences. Although the army is densely populated, it is prone to pandemics, but on the other hand, the army is more organized, so the effects of various measures are better. Coupled with the material tilt, although the army is the first to get sick, it is relatively The control is better.

However, this is not the case at all for the civilian population. The organization of ordinary people cannot be compared with the military, and they have fewer resources. As this flu spreads among the civilian population, the whole of Europe is plunged into panic.

In the second round of the epidemic, the death rate of this flu went from about 0.4% ascending to about 6%. Coupled with its terrible infectious ability, the number of people who died because of this disease was greatly increased. increased. Because of the lack of specific medicines, the hospital has once again become the hardest hit area of ​​infection. The cross-infection between patients is so serious that many people dare not approach the hospital at all. Even the doctors have fallen ill-although they wear masks, long-term contact with patients still makes many doctors contract this terrible flu.

..."Well, the pandemic has occurred, and now I will leave the rest of the matter to you." Scrooge said to Graystone and Donald, "Oh, besides, I guess this flu will be very fast. You will log in to United States. So, we have to take precautions in advance. I announce a few disciplines, and I hope you can all abide by them. First of all, before the flu epidemic is over, you two should minimize going out as much as possible and are not allowed to go to any public The place. The entire duck castle must be thoroughly disinfected, and you have to drink anti-viral oral liquid every day. Also, those little guys, find an excuse to let them come back to the duck castle in the past few months. Don't go to school or do other things. External contact should be reduced, such as meetings and so on. If you can attend meetings, you should wear a gas mask. This time the epidemic is definitely not trivial. I don’t want anything to happen to our family."

"Dad, we all know." Gray Stone said, looking at Scrooge in awe.

"Well, let's go to your business."

...

Paris branch of Salvation Hospital, Paris, France.

There was a long line in front of the fever clinic of the Salvation Hospital, and this line even went all the way to the street outside the hospital. Generally speaking, people are unwilling or daring to huddle in line at this time. But because it was mentioned in the broadcast that the Salvation Hospital now has the latest artifact drug that may have a therapeutic effect on this flu-antiviral oral liquid, so many patients, accompanied by their family members, are dragging heavy loads. Body, come here to line up. The family members of the patients all wear thick masks, and some people also wear several layers of masks. Recently, the price of masks has skyrocketed like crazy. In just over a week, the price of masks has increased by more than ten times. Nowadays, an ordinary cotton gauze mask can be priced as high as three francs. At five francs, this is crazy. In addition to masks, the price of alcohol has also risen sharply. Because it is said that using alcohol to infiltrate the mask can better protect against that terrible virus. So, now if you take the risk and walk next to this team, you must be able to smell the strong smell of alcohol.

In addition to the patients and family members who have to take a risk for their own relatives, there is another type of people in the queue, that is, people who use money to replace others in the queue. These people are generally poor and have to take such risks in order to make some money. Most of them can't afford authentic masks, which have higher prices, so they can only replace them with homemade masks. As for the constant use of alcohol infiltration masks, they naturally can't afford it. But for the money, you have to take some risks.

In fact, those who can line up to buy medicine are still in better backgrounds, because the price of this anti-viral oral liquid is also very expensive. The price of each one exceeds two francs. However, people from United States really have a conscience and did not deliberately increase the price, because before that, as a special medicine for various encephalitis, the price of this antiviral oral liquid has never been cheaper. Nowadays, although the demand has greatly increased, MacDonald has basically maintained the original price. According to MacDonald, the cost of certain raw materials required for this drug is inherently high, and the preparation process is very complicated, coupled with high development costs, so the current price is really very conscientious. The price is not very profitable at all.

Of course, few people really know whether this is true or not. Because the antiviral oral liquid has not applied for a patent, naturally there is no public formula. During his promotion, Macdonald mentioned that this medicine uses a large amount of Chinese herbal medicines. However, Chinese herbal medicines include thousands of kinds and the price is extremely different. So the real cost of this thing is really no one knows. . However, MacDonald did not take the opportunity to increase the price, which definitely shows that MacDonald Pharmaceuticals is a conscientious company.

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