Writer Chris Carroll takes us through the halls of an ornate—and spooky—century-old hotel in Baltimore while it was hosting a unique experiment to expose healthy people to the flu. The purpose was to understand an everyday phenomenon with a profound effect both individually and societally: the sharing of infectious viruses. Carroll focuses on the lead researcher, Dr. Donald Milton, a physician and environmental health specialist who rose to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic for his sometimes-controversial body of work that led to global health authorities eventually recommending masking and dropping recommendations for social distancing to defeat airborne viruses. Carroll’s narrative documents Milton’s maverick-like career, his team’s creativity in staging the complex hotel experiment and the difficulties of making it work. The story demonstrates how high-priority University of Maryland-led research is answering big questions that are potentially crucial to staving off the next pandemic.
From the Judges
Judges all agreed, this was a fantastic character-driven story and the science presented is understandable and easy to digest for the reader.
