The Fourth and Final Installment

My favorite part of any book tends to be the ending. Not because it's over but because that's where all the conclusions are drawn. That's where everything that has occurred so far makes sense and pulls together to show the readers why the book exists in the first place. The Hot Zone did not disappoint.

Throughout the book, we learn about the viruses that are infiltrating our society but in the conclusion of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston shows a different idea, one that I see potential in, that maybe humans are infesting their society. Those viruses could have potentially lived in the rain forests undisturbed for hundreds of years and then we come through and decide that humans belong where we don't.

Humans are a lot like the filoviruses in that we keep growing until we hit an obstacle, we rid ourselves of the obstacle, and then we keep growing. One of the things that hit me when reading is that this book was written in 1995 when the human population still hovered around five billion. Preston speculates how it's possible that humans and viruses can coexist with growing populations of both organisms. We've surpassed seven billion people and the amount of deadly hot viruses emerging from the rain forests is growing rapidly too and it's kind of like an old western movie- there's not enough room on this planet for the both of us. Okay, that was a really cheesy joke. I apologize.

Another thing I really liked about section four was that we saw the story of Ebola and Marburg from Preston's point of view. It was his story. I just thought it was cool that we saw his personal experience with the aspects of his book. We learned about his connection with the Kinshasa Highway and what the rain forests and it's history means to him. It makes the non-fiction real.