A fictional article from the future

The 2020 Pandemic and the MSM clusters

This article is written by an anonymous reader.

One of the mysterious features of the 2020 pandemic at the time was the HSE’s difficulty in identifying one particular source of community infection.

Repeatedly, in those frantic first months of the crisis, tracers were unable to trace the original source in each cluster. Without being able to identify the source, it was impossible to then isolate those others with whom that original spreader had had contact.

Researchers discovered eventually a surprising common denominator: men who were having sex with men. Families, neighbourhoods and workplaces of these men were getting infected; but because the sexual contact they were having were frequently secret, and in some cases anonymous, many of the participants admitted to researchers years later that they didn’t reveal the full extent of their sexual activity to the HSE at the time.