A 28-year-old plague researcher died in Russia. Authorities have imposed a quarantine but deny any threat of plague, and locals are struggling to make sense of it.

Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee of a plague research institute, died overnight on October 1–2 in Shelekhov, a city just outside Irkutsk. Authorities then isolated about 200 people who had been in contact with her and imposed quarantine restrictions at the hospital where she had been admitted