“The Vaccine Certification Program continues to expand with eighty-two countries now included. The United Nations Certification Committee will vote on the inclusion of Romania, Chile and Poland next month.”
Gradually the world is regaining its size after years of shrinking. When the United Nations announced the Certification Program, I breathed a massive sigh of relief. Only countries with a vaccination rate of over 99.9 percent are eligible for certification. Once a country is approved, its citizens can fly within the Certification Zone, subject to national visa rules. The head of the Korean Immigration Service, Min-Jun Kim, originally suggested it. He had to deal with the fallout of North Korea in April 2026 and the unification in June. He knows better than most the importance of ensuring vaccination rates in unstable populations.
I still like to watch the footage from the first international flight last year in July. It was pre–Certification Program so the passengers all had to prove, with individual doctors’ notes, that they had been vaccinated. One hundred sixty-three people flew from Sydney to Seoul. They touched down and the cameras filmed the plane, and them waving as they disembarked and then their slow procession through the passport area. They all ran out into the arrivals area and flung themselves into the arms of the people waiting. Mums and daughters, the occasional son, father and husband. There’s one family in particular where a grandmother got to meet her four-year-old granddaughter for the first time that just had me in floods at the time. It makes me feel a kind of wild pride watching that. Look how far we’ve come, I think to myself. Look how we have survived.
We monitor dissent against the vaccine certification closely. The last thing we need is a movement advocating civil unrest and open borders. The UN and WHO say the global vaccination rate is still hovering around 96 percent, nowhere near high enough for men to travel safely outside the Certification Zone. Some people might not like it but safety comes first.
“The news coming out of China is positive. Fei Hong has been elected as president of the Fifth Chinese State encompassing much of central China. Small outbursts of disruption continue in Two and Six; however, Fei’s election appears to suggest Five remains the most stable of the twelve.”
It still feels so odd that China doesn’t exist anymore. We refer to it as the “Twelve,” which sounds either religious or like the villainous organization in a Bond film depending on when I last went to church. Hong Kong remains an incredibly helpful ally, now that it’s completely independent. We have to find our silver linings where we can.
“France is working with states Five and Eight on voluntary repatriations. We have over fifteen thousand people who have been unable to travel home since the outbreak of the Plague.”
That’s a good idea. We should maybe steal that.
I think about Fei Hong’s big acceptance speech, which she finished off with a nice little sound bite that’s been repeated more times than I care to count. “We lost great minds who could have changed the world and we lost friends, brothers, sons, fathers, husbands who could have changed our lives. But we made something positive rise from the ashes of despair. We are now free, and that is worth everything we went through,” Fei said. I should be happy about the peace and democracy. I really should, but it’s my job to anticipate problems, not to sing “Kumbaya.” Still, good for them.
REMEMBRANCE
CATHERINE
London, United Kingdom （England and Wales）
Day 1,745
March 1, 2031
The sight of a warm, brightly lit bookshop bustling with people in the midst of a rainy March evening is a sight that thrills me. I’ve wrangled an invite to the book release party for one of the most anticipated memoirs of the year. Dear Frances, Love Toby, a memoir by Toby Williams, the man whose wife, Frances, famously saved him from starvation on the Silver Lady, a ship off the coast of Iceland.
I’ve been in touch with Toby about including his letters in my project and he invited me to the party and assured me, as the letters will be included in his own book, that I can use them in due course. The room is cheerful and packed with people excitedly drinking acidic white wine. I try to look supercilious because it’s easier to look off-putting than eager when you don’t know anyone. While I’m here, I might as well have a mosey around the shelves. There haven’t been many publishing phenomena since the Plague but the ones that have struck a chord have sold millions, as we all search desperately for meaning and connection in these brutally lonely times.