Grave diggers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) walk away after burying a person, who presumably died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the special purpose section of a graveyard on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, Russia on May 13, 2020. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

Iranian women walk in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, August 5, 2023. These days, with uncovered women a common sight on Tehran streets, authorities have begun raiding companies where women employees or customers have been seen without the headscarf, or hijab. Iran's parliament is discussing a law that would increase punishments on uncovered women and the businesses they frequent. (Photo by Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)

A helicopter drops fire retardent to protect a property in Balmoral, 150 kilometres southwest of Sydney on December 19, 2019. A state of emergency was declared in Australia's most populated region on December 19, as a record heat wave fanned unprecedented bushfires. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

A balloon depicting the face of alien movie character E.T. is seen in the sky at the 15th Solar Balloon Festival in Envigado, Colombia December 31, 2015. (Photo by Fredy Builes/Reuters)

Faces adorn crosses placed in the Garden of Remembrance of some of Britain's armed forces members who have died in Afghanistan in the Garden of Remembrance outside Westminster Abbey at the official opening of the Royal British Legion's Field of Remembrance on November 5, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Alastair Grant-Pool/Getty Images)

British troops arriving in England on June 6, 1940 after fleeing Flanders received all kinds of fruit and food from women who passed it out to them as they halted in railroad stations. A soldier holds aloft a banana he received from the woman. (Photo by AP Photo)

An army soldier takes a tree branch from an anti-government protester who is blocking a major highway that links the capital Beirut to northern Lebanon, in the town of Nahr el-Kalb, north of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, January 3, 2020. Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, while protests against corruption and mismanagement have gripped the country since October. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

The civilised world lies on its knees, a sickness wracking its body. The affliction causes a necrotising of tissues so perfectly uniform in distribution that victims take on the appearance of corpses long before death occurs due to organ failure or secondary infections. ...