 What is the Bureau of Vital Statistics and what is its purpose?
The street that led towards the Bureau of Vital Statistics was a mess of desolate carnage. A month later the meat animals, the birds and the household pets began dropping as rapidly as the flies which had dropped earlier. Before the plague the Bureau of Vital Statistics had been one of man's crowning achievements. Housed as it was in a huge metallic globe of a building, it contained computers which kept exact account of every human on earth. Compulsory registration and the classification of each individual by means of the discrete patterns of his brain waves had accomplished for man what no ordinary census could have. Once a year the Bureau issued The Index, an exact accounting of Earth's four billion inhabitants. On these screens could be graphed the population of any and every part of the globe.
 It holds a computer whose design is thought to be humanity’s greatest achievement. The computer keeps track of all humans, monitoring their health, their lifespan, and where they are on Earth.
 It holds a computer whose design is thought to be humanity’s greatest achievement. The computer keeps track of all humans, monitoring their health, their lifespan, and where they are on Earth.  It holds a computer whose design is thought to be humanity’s greatest achievement. The computer monitors whether certain countries are more susceptible to alien invasion.  It holds a computer whose design is thought to be humanity’s greatest achievement. The computer keeps track of what is happening on nearby planets.  It holds a computer that keeps track of how many people are currently infected by the plague—a technology thought to be humanity’s greatest achievement.