83. The power of money.
On January 2, 2020, the first symptomatic case was detected and quarantined in Singapore, and on January 3, 2020, a symptomatic case was detected and quarantined in Hong Kong.
Ding, ding, ding!
“Yes, please come in.”
“It’s me, Mr. Chairman.”
There was a knock on the door, and Vice President Min Myung-ki poked his head in.
“Ah, Vice President Min. Come in. What news do you have?”
“There was a report from the lab.”
“What does it say?”
“They checked the samples they got over and over again, and our suspicions were correct.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, they’re calling it a new coronavirus.”
“Huh—.”
“…”
I’d been reacting in anticipation, but when the news was confirmed, my heart sank.
“What should we do now?”
“Just do what we’ve been preparing to do. We’ll immediately start applying it to the development of diagnostic kits, and we’ll also start developing a vaccine by applying the existing SARS vaccine, which is already in the preclinical stage.”
“Is it similar to the old SARS?”
“It turns out to be a strain of SARS-CoV, the SARS virus that caused the 2003 pandemic. As we suspected, they’re back. And more virulent.”
“Does that make it easier to develop a vaccine?”
“Absolutely. I don’t think anyone on the planet can develop one faster than we can.”
“That’s good to know. So when do you think the diagnostic kit and vaccine will be ready?”
“I think we’ll have the diagnostic kits ready in a week or so, but getting them certified by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is another matter.”
“What about the vaccine?”
“The vaccine will be ready in about 10 days, but that’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can skip the preclinical phase and go into primary clinical, but there’s no way to do that. We have to vaccinate the general population extensively, and there’s no way we can do that in Korea when it’s not even spreading, and we won’t be able to get approval.”
“…”
It’s just a mountain out of a molehill.
“So what do we do?”
“Well, first, China has to admit that the pneumonia that’s currently widespread in Wuhan is caused by the new coronavirus. Until then, we can’t move.”
“What the hell are they doing, people are dying?”
“It’s a communist one-party dictatorship. Being an authoritarian government, it’s not going to be easy for them to admit to this kind of pandemic.”
“Damn it!”
My anger at the Chinese government soared.
People are dying, what the hell are they doing?
Surely the Chinese government knows by now.
It’s not like they don’t have labs to identify the virus.
The fact that they’ve remained silent so far suggests that they’re trying to cover it up somehow.
“That’s why we need to work closely with the government, whether it’s a diagnostic kit or a vaccine.”
“You’ve been in talks with the CDC, haven’t you?”
“It’s true that so far we’ve been working informally with Dr. Kwon and his former colleagues, but from now on we need to work formally. We’ll need to get them to sign off on the process of obtaining the specimen.”
“This is it, Won. It’s hard enough to do good, so what do you suggest we do?”
“Well, first, you need to meet with the CDC, and they’d like to meet with you as well.”
“You mean the director, Mr. Chung?”
“Yes, they want to work with us in earnest. How do we do that?”
“Well, you need to meet with him. Make a dinner date, maybe even today.”
“I—.”
“Why, you said you wanted to meet?”
“I think a dinner date would be too much for you, and besides, you’re in the middle of an emergency, so it would be hard for you to get out to dinner on your own. Why don’t we just go ahead and meet at the office?”
“…”
I don’t want to spend more than 30,000 won.
Vice President Min made a meeting appointment over the phone in advance and headed straight to the CDC.
He also called President Nam Jung-won to accompany him.
“This is Kang Kang-sik, chairman of Karma Investment.”
“I’m Nam Jung-won, president of Karma Holdings.”
“It’s been a while, Mr. Chung. Aren’t you the general manager now?”
While Mr. Jung and Mr. Nam exchanged the usual introductory greetings, Mr. Min greeted Mr. Jung as if he were seeing a junior for the first time in a long time.
He said that he was actually five or six years older than me, and that they had worked together.
“I’m Jung In-young, head of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Mr. Min.”
An ordinary middle-aged woman in her 50s.
It was quite impressive that she spoke so calmly and smoothly.
Director Kwon Jun-ho also had a very low voice and a calm style, but looking at the two of them, they looked like a brother and sister.
Are they a calm man and a calm woman?
“I know that Karma is proactively doing a lot of things for the health of the people in various ways. It’s a shame because it’s supposed to be a government job.”
“No, I think you get the idea, it’s not something a public servant is supposed to do, by nature, and I’m told it’s proactive now, but a year ago it might have been seen as a geeky rich guy doing something stupid.”
“Anyway, it’s helping a lot, and I’m sure it will help even more in the future, so thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“The reason I asked to see you, Mr. Chairman, is that I am very concerned about the unexplained pneumonia outbreak that is currently occurring in the Wuhan region of China.”
“How?”
“This is off the record, I hope you don’t mind?”
“I don’t think our meeting will be seen as normal anyway.”
An eccentric billionaire meets the head of South Korea’s quarantine.
It doesn’t get much more unlikely than that.
“Then I’ll be honest with you: the epidemiologists at the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including myself, are taking this pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan very seriously. We’re making assumptions based on the circumstances and symptoms, because it has many similarities to the last two coronavirus outbreaks.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is, but there’s really not much we can do about it right now, since we’re government officials who can’t make any moves without accurate evidence.”
“I understand that.”
“But, Mr. Chairman, I understand that you have been preparing for the coronavirus before by investing a lot of money. It’s as if you anticipated the current situation.”
“We had some information that we couldn’t disclose.”
“Regardless, we desperately need your help. I believe that with the combined efforts of your organization and ours, something good can come of this. Would you be willing to help us?”
“Hmmm—.”
I turned my head and looked at Vice President Min Myung-ki.
Mr. Min nodded and replied.
“Mr. Chung is a trustworthy man. Besides, we need the government’s cooperation right now, and I think we should share all the information.”
“Um, I understand, Mr. Chung.”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman.”
“I’m going to have to tell you off the record, too. What I’m about to tell you is not to be disclosed anywhere else until you’ve discussed it with us. Do you agree?”
“I agree.”
“We obtained a specimen of a pneumonia epidemic in the Wuhan area about ten days ago.”
“What? Is that, is that true?”
Mr. Zheng, who looked like a stone-faced man, stuttered in surprise.
“How on earth do you know that—.”
“It’s the power of money, you see, and why do I say unofficial?”
“Yes, I see what you mean, and have you checked the specimen?”
“Yes, I was briefed on the results by Vice President Min before I came here, Mr. Min!”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman.”
“I think it would be better if Vice President Min explains this to you.”
“Understood, General Manager Jung.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The results are in. It’s a variant of SARS-CoV.”
“Three, my God—.”
Mr. Chung’s mouth hung open, unable to continue.
“Is it true? Are you sure?”
“I’ve checked it several times. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
“This can’t be—.”
“That’s why I found you. We’re already close to developing a diagnostic kit and a vaccine, but as you know, we can’t move forward from here without the cooperation of the government.”
“Hold on, let me think.”
Mr. Chung seemed to pause for a moment, and we fell silent to allow him to think.
Then.
“Senior, did you develop the diagnostic kit using the erasure method?”
“That’s right.”
“And the vaccine is made from SARS and MERS samples?”
“That’s right. Then you know what we need from now on, right?”
“Diagnostic kits, that’s not a problem. We need to get them approved quickly, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll take care of that. The problem is the vaccine.”
“Yeah, because we need to get it into Phase 1.”
“But then it’s going to be a question of how Karma got the samples, or how they got them into the country, because you can’t just say you paid for it, and it’s so fast, Karma’s movements, you’re going to get international suspicion.”
“I see.”
What if China releases a vaccine as soon as the new coronavirus hits, as if they’ve been waiting?
Honestly, I’d be skeptical.
“Well, for now, I’d like to ask you to keep working on it. And keep it a secret from the outside world.”
“How can we do that?”
“It’s already made it to Singapore and Hong Kong, which means it’s practically out of China. It’s going to start spreading like wildfire within a few days.”
“And?”
“At that point, it’ll be past the point where it’s weird to say we got a sample from outside of China, and at that point, the Chinese won’t be able to cover it up anymore.”
That was enough for me.
And I don’t even want to bother with this anymore.
sh*t, the world is groaning under a pandemic, and I don’t want them to know.
“As for the diagnostic kit, you can apply for authorization to use it as soon as it’s finished, and I’ll ask the minister myself to get it approved as soon as possible, but the vaccine is the problem, and even if the government approves it for payment, it’s going to be hard to get clinical subjects, so that’s a problem.”
“We’ll see what we can do about that, Mr. Min.”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman.”
“How many people do you need for phase 1?”
“We need at least a few dozen people. In Phase 2, hundreds, and in Phase 3, over a thousand.”
“Then let me put it this way: if we offer 50 million won to each person who responds to the first phase, will we get any volunteers?”
“Fifty million dollars? That much?”
“Would we get volunteers?”
“Of course! It’s not often that people get hurt in vaccine trials.”
“Then let’s do it, and if it does go wrong, we’ll give you a billion for the deaths and we’ll take care of all the volunteers with sequelae, right?”
“That’s enough, that’s enough!”
Is money a problem now?
Even if you give 100 people 50 million won each, that’s 5 billion.
That’s a lot of money.
“Phase 2 will be safer, right?”
“Yes, there is virtually no risk.”
“Then tell them you’ll give them 10 million won each for Phase 2. The side effects will be the same, and Phase 3 will be 5 million won each, okay?”
“That’s enough!”
“Now, all we need is the government’s active cooperation, right? Isn’t that right, Mr. Jung?”
“…”
Mr. Jung didn’t answer.
He just stared at me with a look of disbelief.