ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the development of narratives of epidemics of West Nile virus in San Diego, California, and cholera in Venezuela—before any humans became infected. These virtual epidemics enable one to ask how a plague comes to have a "public character and dramatic intensity" in the first place. Science studies scholars have sparked growing interest in ethnographic studies of science, the effects of new scientific objects on contemporary life, and the ways in which they are imbued with value. One reason news coverage of biomedicine is generally sidelined is the reductionist way in which it is viewed by scholars and laypersons alike. Health reporters accommodated their everyday practices not to Vibrio cholerae there wasn't any in the country for nearly a year but to the dissemination of information about it. The ministry itself systematically reorganized its practices to meet the challenges offered by an impending cholera epidemic—the communicative challenges.
