Siberian Anti-Plague Institute Now Just an Institute, Apparently

In a move that has reassured absolutely no one, Russian authorities have emphatically denied the presence of biblical pestilence in the Irkutsk Region, clarifying that merely 'an employee' of the local anti-plague institute has come down with a spot of 'pneumonia.' One might wonder if said employee specialized in, say, infectious diseases, or perhaps just particularly virulent spreadsheets. Local citizens, however, remain unconvinced, reportedly preferring the comforting narrative of zombie bears over the official diagnosis of 'a slight sniffle, probably from too much ice fishing.' The country’s consumer watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, further assuaged public anxieties by emphasizing that the institute itself is designed to 'combat especially dangerous infections.' This, of course, does wonders to clarify why an 'especially dangerous infection' might find its way *into* the very place designed to fight it, much like a fire station suddenly finding itself engulfed in an especially aggressive conflagration. Experts, now primarily defined as anyone within a thousand-mile radius with an internet connection, have begun speculating on whether future 'employee' illnesses might include 'mild leprosy' or 'a touch of the highly contagious giggles.'