High school physics teacher Mark Swaim likes to turn current events into teaching opportunities. For instance, who better to turn to at this time of the Coronavirus pandemic than Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his courageous crew? They handled outbreaks both aboard and off-board the Enterprise.
Here's how they did it:
1. "Genesis" (S07ep19) - After Picard and Data return to the ship after disarming a torpedo, they find that the Enterprise has been infected by a virus through a venom. The venom has altered the crew's genetic makeup with information from different species (even extinct ones!) and have turned them almost amphibian. Data creates a retrovirus out of unaffected fluid from the fetus of Ogawa and sends it throughout the Enterprise as a gas. Mark Swaim points out that it works, and the virus is defeated.
2. "Symbiosis" (S01ep21) - In this episode, Picard and the crew beams over four crew members (two Ornarans and two Brekkians) of a ship known as Sanction plus their cargo. The cargo is found to contain medicine destined to fight a plague on their planet. The Ornarans turn out to be infected with the disease, which drives Picard to quarantine them. Then, Dr. Crusher discovers that the cargo contains narcotics, and the "plague" is just an addiction withdrawal. In the end, the Captain lets them leave with the drugs but does not repair the Sanction to keep them from getting hold of any more drugs in the future.
3. "Thine Own Self" (s07ep16) - Mark Swaim says that Data suffers from mysterious amnesia on a planet he is on a mission on. He ends up carrying a box with pieces of metal in it. The people on the planet accuse Data of spreading illness as Garvin, the Barkonian who takes care of him, falls ill. Data traces the disease to radioactive metal from the box and finds a cure for the illness. He pours down the cure into the planet's water supply to cure everyone, but the angry townspeople still stab him. He is later on rescued and repaired by the Enterprise crew.
Hopefully, Mark Swaim says inspiration can be culled from the fictional TV series as the Earth battles a pandemic of its own.
Here's how they did it:
1. "Genesis" (S07ep19) - After Picard and Data return to the ship after disarming a torpedo, they find that the Enterprise has been infected by a virus through a venom. The venom has altered the crew's genetic makeup with information from different species (even extinct ones!) and have turned them almost amphibian. Data creates a retrovirus out of unaffected fluid from the fetus of Ogawa and sends it throughout the Enterprise as a gas. Mark Swaim points out that it works, and the virus is defeated.
2. "Symbiosis" (S01ep21) - In this episode, Picard and the crew beams over four crew members (two Ornarans and two Brekkians) of a ship known as Sanction plus their cargo. The cargo is found to contain medicine destined to fight a plague on their planet. The Ornarans turn out to be infected with the disease, which drives Picard to quarantine them. Then, Dr. Crusher discovers that the cargo contains narcotics, and the "plague" is just an addiction withdrawal. In the end, the Captain lets them leave with the drugs but does not repair the Sanction to keep them from getting hold of any more drugs in the future.
3. "Thine Own Self" (s07ep16) - Mark Swaim says that Data suffers from mysterious amnesia on a planet he is on a mission on. He ends up carrying a box with pieces of metal in it. The people on the planet accuse Data of spreading illness as Garvin, the Barkonian who takes care of him, falls ill. Data traces the disease to radioactive metal from the box and finds a cure for the illness. He pours down the cure into the planet's water supply to cure everyone, but the angry townspeople still stab him. He is later on rescued and repaired by the Enterprise crew.
Hopefully, Mark Swaim says inspiration can be culled from the fictional TV series as the Earth battles a pandemic of its own.
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