Copyright/fiction note

The Evdonia of this Evdonia Paranormal Force item file is a fictionalized version of the real micronation, with claimed and controlled territory. The real Evdonia has neither claimed or controlled territory, a Ministry of Health, a Paranormal Force nor a town called Locksford. We do not believe in the paranormal IRL, and the EPF is not part of the actual Republic of Evdonia. It is used here because an IRL government actually taking COVID misinformation seriously is so implausible to me that I can’t even fictionalize it.

In-universe, EPF is a GoI to SCPF operatives, which at various times operates as a subsidiary of SCPF, but historical mutual distrust means that while they no longer use their own item file format, they maintain separate object lists like a language branch, despite the current warm relations and integrated cooperation. EPF is secret, and the cover is a subdepartment of Misinformation and Countermisinformation at the Intelligence Directorate. EPF activities used for wider government or international purposes are usually parallel-constructed. Warmer relations with SCPF usually coincide with an icier attitude from Evdonia Intelligence, but the trend is to better fund EPF while safeguarding its independence from Evdonia Intelligence and function as part of SCPF. It is considered risky to attempt to abolish it.

The EPF manual of style dictates that «arrow quotes» are used for quoted speech, even though the language is English.

This article is in progress. If scp-wiki Wikidot wants to ape it (or the associated GoI) at this stage, they may, but should wait.

Some characters are from scp-wiki’s character dossier.

This article is available to you under the CC-BY-SA v3 licence, as required by being partially based on a scp-wiki Wikidot work.

[SCP fanfic] SCP-5363-UX - Coronavirus with memetic properties

Item #: SCP-5363-UX, also EPF Item 5363.

Secrecy: General Level 2 (restricted).

Object Class: -A: Safe/Amida/Danger, -B: Keter/Vlam/Caution (SCP EN ACS)

Threat Level: Black (SCP FR scale)

Special Containment Procedures: At present, SCP-5363-UX-A is uncontained and in severe breach, actively circulating in the population. Foundation operatives are authorized to use disinformative propaganda to rectify this - the cover story, which is not really a cover story but the truth, is a pandemic coronavirus.

Containment procedures to be distributed to the public are that respirators providing at least US NIOSH N95 or superior protection as well as source control shall be worn in every public place, as well as shared private places (like condominium common areas), or some kind of face covering when N95 is unavailable, and buildings must be fitted with air filtration which works continuously. Diners may only operate as takeouts. Further restrictions are to be decided with the local CDC-equivalent, based on the principle that the danger is a particle that causes permanent disability and is exhaled by victims. Filters must be changed roughly every week to mitigate non-anomalous soiling. Homeless persons must be provisioned with housing even at the cost of requisitions. Non-compliant civilians can usually be processed normally. In cases of severe memetic affliction, they need to be submitted to the Paranormal Force near Locksford, Evdonia or local Foundation sites for quarantine, treatment (non-anomalous anticoronaviral drugs can sometimes work if actively suffering -A, but do not resolve -B affliction), amnesticization and discharge.

Containment procedures to be disseminated to governments, corporations and GoIs friendly and if possible hostile involve the free and subsidized trade in respiratory PPE and high-efficacy air filters, and controlled-rate stockpiling, to enable public compliance.

By these methods, effective containment may, or may not, be fully achieved. See down for a containment discussion.

Copies of the -A object are to be stored as is typical for coronaviruses. Personnel are to be screened every 14 days for affliction related to the infohazard effect. Only BSL-4 storage, transport and study procedures and facilities may be used. The use of comatose D-class not expected to recover for replication has been contemplated; the Ethics Committee must be consulted in each instance. The Evdonia Paranormal Force has voluntarily relinquished all samples to the Anglophone SCP Foundation.

This article is technically an instance of -B. If you have read it without appropriate training, you are to immediately report to your site director. Unauthorized access constitutes a containment breach. You may be disciplined, and you will be reclassified as E-class until assessed for affliction and found negative or amenable to treatment, then retrained. This should be self-limiting and not disruptive. Instances of -B in general circulation are to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis; not all (especially accurate, bordering on catastrophizing or produced by a -A survivor) instances may be contained without jeopardizing efforts to contain -A.

Please note that a safe object is not an innocuous object. SCP-5363-UX-A is currently causing mass death and disability in the human population, may not be containable, and poses an active risk of a K-class scenario. If only it could be contained, it is a virus and would not attempt to escape without the help of a host.

Please note that a Keter object is not necessarily a dangerous object, although they usually are inimical to humanity and always have a severe breach likelihood. SCP-5363-UX-B is extremely easy to breach containment of, but the actual danger is low if effective censorship is applied at all levels of media to select for accurate instances, which tend to raise the reader’s resistance.

Description: SCP-5363-UX is two related anomalies: SCP-5363-UX-A is physically a non-anomalous coronavirus, similar to non-anomalous SARS and MERS viruses. Normal scientists have named it SARS2. It has a slight infohazardous effect, caused by and resulting in -B. It is also an informational affliction, SCP-5363-UX-B.

Symptoms of SCP-5363-UX-A are typical for a MERS relative - flu-like, with sometimes-severe respiratory distress. Most who survive the acute syndrome appear roughly baseline at 3 months, but cognitive and sensory deficits have been observed, including memory loss, forgetting how sick they really were, and despising foods formerly enjoyed. Some are more severely afflicted with chronic effects. These usually have a higher resistance to the affliction of -B.

-A spreads in the air. It is a fine particulate, light and rugged enough to effectively have buoyancy upon the air, initially carried away from the victim/vector’s body in aerosols and droplets. Handwashing is not effective for gross containment but can prevent rare cases of fomite transmission. The same is true of all human coronaviruses. Sexual transmission is suspected, but not known.

RAISA note: The author of this file, Jr. Rsr. Veronika Marshall of the Evdonia Paranormal Force, has been summoned to teleconference with Site-17 for screening. The framing of this description, as well as her previous activity on case files that would become the case file under SCP-5363-UX, suggests she is afflicted with -B. Symptomatic passages have been underlined.

SCP-5363-UX-B is information about -A, which can be either afflicting or protective. Affliction causes a usually-weak pressure to downplay the severity of -A when writing about -A. Portrayals of -A by afflicted individuals range from factually-accurate but minimizing or dismissive, to deficient in necessary information about self- and community protection, to fantastically wrong. Risk factors for severe affliction include wealth, relative health, dominance in the local racial hierarchy (if applicable), conservative, social democratic, Christian democratic, or fascist politics, and a well-regarded or legally forceful public platform, or exposure to portrayals of -A by -B afflicted persons. When queried on the scientific inaccuracy of their portrayals, afflicted respondents make claims ranging from «just following the science», to claiming paranormal ordinance or protection («YHWH will cleanse my country of this virus»). Some deny -A’s existence altogether, though this does not appear to be an effect of -B. Some people appear immune to the effects of -B altogether and are able to frankly discuss the biological and societal threat -A causes. The UN WHO calls -B the «infodemic» and attibutes it to various non-anomalous forms of manipulation.

-B is a way by which -A engenders conditions that allow it to further spread. -B was not created by -A, but has become part of a complex anomaly encompassing -A.

5363-UX/PoI-1 is Didier Raoult, a white French microbiologist born in Dakar, Senegal on 1952CE-03-13, when Dakar was part of the now-defunct colony of French West Africa. He is suspected of helping to create SCP-5363-UX-B.

OOC note: -B is (dis)information about SARS-2. The premise is that the disinformation has a slight cognitohazard effect - understanding SARS-2 disinformation by governments and others can make you vulnerable to believing and producing disinformation, but most can fight this by reading and understanding accurate information profusely. This, as far as I know, is not the case in reality. It’s not entirely clear to me how this fits in the SCP format. Mentioning Raoult by name as a PoI is for want of “better” PoIs.

The discovery of -A was unremarkable; epidemic SARS pneumonia of unknown origin in Hubei, People’s Republic of China, in 2019CE, new virus found to be the causative agent and information about it published in scientific journals.

-B was discovered when the Republic of Evdonia Ministry of Health had to discipline multiple employees for failure to appropriately follow and disseminate precautions. An anomalous source was suspected and reported, and classified in early 2024.

Further containment notes: A recently-identified subset of the non-anomalous scientific community immune to exhibiting -B or otherwise resistant (social interaction with -B immune persons) has long suspected permanent infection with -A for apparently recovered victims. Evidence is beginning to suggest this is the case, with apparently recovered victims who die of unrelated causes showing -A virus in their tissues. Full containment may thus be impossible without essentially committing genocide, which would be counterproductive. By the emergency methods outlined in the Special Containment Procedures, the spread of -A can be largely, but not completely, prevented, providing partially-effective containment. These will have to be continued for several decades, and apply to all persons.

A previous version of this file referred to SCP-5363-UX-B as memetic. The authors were briefed that this is not correct terminology according to the research manuals of the SCPF, as the object is not itself a meme, but a compulsion to create memes which are by themselves non-special. Informational hazards are memetic but it is not policy to use that term directly.

SCP-5363-UX-B testing logs: Several inadvertent tests have been performed by unauthorized personnel reading this page and pages like it in regular health organization sites as well as health disinformation sites. A selection of those tests are logged here.