A single incident of Dragon Pox is reported in London on Tuesday. It makes it onto the wireless on Tuesday and the papers on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, it is confirmed on Thursday that it is a new strain of the virus that has not been seen before and is resistant to the cure. Healers are working overtime to modify the cure to make it effective again. This is on the wireless on Thursday and in the papers on Friday. Also in the Daily Prophet on Friday is a pull out section on Dragon Pox and how to protect yourself from it. This includes information from here as well as some additional information: dragon pox is an airborne disease that is usually spread by close proximity to a sufferer or touching something a sufferer has touched. It is a purely wizard disease - muggles can't catch it and neither can squibs. Curiously, it is very rare also in muggle-borns and more likely to be severe the purer the witch or wizard's blood. Older people and babies are also particularly suscpetible.
On Saturday, shops in Diagon Alley start selling masks to cover the lower half of the face, supposedly to prevent infection. Many are also highly decorative.
2001
Early in the week, the trio quatro cinqo discover that Lucius Malfoy is going home for weekends and plot to use this information.
A number of small protests have been taking place, but the anti-werewolf group organise a mass protest for Wednesday which takes place outside the Ministry of Magic. A counter-protest also takes place by an organization called FOW (Friends of Werewolves), and a skirmish breaks out between the two groups that results in several people being admitted to St. Mungo's.
On Saturday the naughty cinqo owl Severus, pretending to be Lucius, asking him to meet at the Hogs Head. Ginny turns up as Lucius and attempts to find out what happened to Draco. Meanwhile, Luna turns up at Malfoy manor as Severus and they have a similar conversation...