4 ms·

Viruses which kill too quickly don't spread widely enough to kill a lot of people. Good viruses kill after a few days of showing few (if any) symptoms so that

Viruses which kill too quickly don't spread widely enough to kill a lot of people. Good viruses kill after a few days of showing few (if any) symptoms so that they can maximise their spread. This is the difference between epidemic and pandemic viral contagions.

thu2111 7y ago
This virus spreads quickly (check) but has a mortality rate of 2%, mostly the old and already immunocompromised. If that's a bioweapon it's a pretty ineffective one.
- madddiagnosis 7y ago
  2% so far, it's very early in the lifecycle of this epidemic and most people go days without showing any symptoms. The mortality rate will rapidly increase as it spreads to areas where it can overwhelm the local infrastructure. Not every country is capable of creating hospitals in 6 days like China, and China has a lot of experience responding to these crises since the Sars days. We are only a month in, it's too early to really count mortality.
- blackrock 7y ago
  It might not be a bioweapon. It might be an economic weapon.
- ajuc 7y ago
  If you want to extinct homo sapiens you should probably make a virus that infects everybody and has as little symptoms as possible and then kills them a year later. We don't know yet if this virus has any long-term consequences. HIV would seem harmless if we estimated its effects after 1 month. But I don't think bioweapons need to be deadly. If you can make a virus that kills 2% of people but shuts down global trade with your main economic competitor for example - that's quite useful (if you don't care for morality of course). I'm not persuaded it's human-created, but it's a possibility.
bawolff 7y ago
But the point of a bio weapon is not to kill everyone,just your enemy. So i guess you would want it to be very deadly and not spread to far. And i imagine you would want to primarily take out young healthy people (soldiers) not the eldery and sickly. (I assume)

thu2111 7y ago

This virus spreads quickly (check) but has a mortality rate of 2%, mostly the old and already immunocompromised. If that's a bioweapon it's a pretty ineffective one.

madddiagnosis 7y ago
2% so far, it's very early in the lifecycle of this epidemic and most people go days without showing any symptoms. The mortality rate will rapidly increase as it spreads to areas where it can overwhelm the local infrastructure. Not every country is capable of creating hospitals in 6 days like China, and China has a lot of experience responding to these crises since the Sars days. We are only a month in, it's too early to really count mortality.
blackrock 7y ago
It might not be a bioweapon. It might be an economic weapon.
ajuc 7y ago
If you want to extinct homo sapiens you should probably make a virus that infects everybody and has as little symptoms as possible and then kills them a year later. We don't know yet if this virus has any long-term consequences. HIV would seem harmless if we estimated its effects after 1 month. But I don't think bioweapons need to be deadly. If you can make a virus that kills 2% of people but shuts down global trade with your main economic competitor for example - that's quite useful (if you don't care for morality of course). I'm not persuaded it's human-created, but it's a possibility.

bawolff 7y ago

But the point of a bio weapon is not to kill everyone,just your enemy. So i guess you would want it to be very deadly and not spread to far. And i imagine you would want to primarily take out young healthy people (soldiers) not the eldery and sickly. (I assume)