Okay, I haven't read this entire thread, but here's some stuff to think about.
1. The media hyping this is a good thing.
I was in Singapore and Malaysia during the bird flu outbreak, the Avian pandemic would have been worse without the massive reaction from authorities - the part the media played was that it scared everyone into using protection and isolated people from one another.
2. A pandemic is inevitable.
Ebola is a good example, it's a nasty little bug, but it kills people too quickly - with modern jet travel, a nasty virus like ebola could decimate the population, if it were airborne, and if it was slightly less efficient.
3. Virus vs modern medicine.
Guess how many viruses we can cure with all the benefits on modern medicine. None, zip, zero, nada. You either live through an infection, or die.
4. Is this the big one? Probably not, reports are coming in from the states that the strain seems to "water down", most of the second generation seem to be surviving.
5. 1918, and the black plague. The plague was worse.
The origins of the plague are disputed among scholars. Some historians believe the pandemic began in China or Central Asia (one such location is lake Issyk Kul)[6] in the lungs of the bobac variety of marmot, spreading to fleas, to rats, and eventually to humans.[7] In the late 1320s or 1330s, and during the next years merchants and soldiers carried it over the caravan routes until in 1346 it reached the Crimea in South Eastern Europe. Other scholars believe the plague was endemic in that area. In either case, from Crimea the plague spread to Western Europe and North Africa during the 1340s.[8][9] The total number of deaths worldwide is estimated at 75 million people,[10] approximately 25–50 million of which occurred in Europe.[11][12] The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population.[13][14][15] It may have reduced the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400.[16]
I have spent time with the team responsible for a reaction to a pandemic in Auckland, let me assure you that they're pretty smart, and they worry about it. The logistics of a pandemic are awful, collection of bodies, societal breakdown, food distribution, essential service coordination... Fun stuff indeed.
It’s diametrically opposed to the sanitised existence of the Lemmings around me in the Dilbert Cartoon hell I live in; it’s life at full volume, perfect colour with high resolution and 10,000 watts of amplification.
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Originally Posted by peasea
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