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A major global pandemic seems like a plausible scenario. We've had a few (semi..) close calls with SARS and swine flu but have been lucky that they haven't muta
by mixmax 16y ago
A major global pandemic seems like a plausible scenario. We've had a few (semi..) close calls with SARS and swine flu but have been lucky that they haven't mutated to be airborne and infectous from human to human.
You don't have to go further back than the 1918 global flu pandemic to see an example of what a global pandemic can do. 3% of the global population died.
You may think that we have better vaccines and better systems in place now than we did 100 years ago, but you'd be largely mistaken[1]. A vaccine takes so long to develop and produce that when it's ready for the market millions of people will already have died. Pandemics spread quickly. Adding to the problem is that the world is so connected and people so mobile that once the virus is out it could easily spread across the globe in a matter of days. One infected stewardess in Heathrow airport wil lmake sure of that.
[1] I'm no expert on biotech so please correct me if I'm mistaken.
- Daniel_Newby 16y agoGovernment regulators tend to choke off vaccine development, but those policies would change in a hurry during a dangerous pandemic. Of greater importance is a disease that there is a vaccine for but which the U.S. government is actively suppressing: smallpox. DNA synthesizers are already at the point where anybody who wants to can resurrect smallpox. It is only a matter of time before that scourge is set loose. The results will be ghastly.
- dkasper 16y agoFunny, last night I watched a West Wing episode where they mention the possibility of a smallpox outbreak. Is it still true that there are just a handful of smallpox vaccines on hand in the US?
- run4yourlives 16y agoVaccines don't have a shelf life of forever, and storing components to defeat a disease that no longer exists beyond a few petri dishes in a military lab isn't really efficient. Odds are there is barely any.
- Daniel_Newby 16y agoThere is not remotely enough vaccine to handle a smallpox attack. EDIT: Apparently the U.S. has rather a lot stockpiled, but good luck getting any in advance of the end of the world.
- tjpick 16y ago> swine flu but have been lucky that they haven't mutated to be airborne and infectous from human to human As far as I can remember, most of the flu last year was of the swine variety and was spreading human to human. We were lucky it wasn't so deadly as it might have been. It spread far and wide though.