46 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
On a Sunday early in March,
as the COVID-19 outbreak was
racing across the planet, the
U.S. Coast Guard cutter Pike
pitched and rolled en route to
the cruise ship Grand Princess,
waiting 14 miles off the coast
of California. The cutter was
delivering a medical disaster
team to separate the sick from
the seemingly healthy among
the 3,500 people aboard and
prepare to bring them ashore.
On the Pike, Michael Callahan,
an infectious disease special-
ist with decades of experience
in ‘hot zones’ everywhere,
waited with his team, he
says, ‘unheroically’ vomiting.
By Richard Conniff