What would happen to the world's politics, religion, pop culture, etc. if another devastating infection like the black death (plague) were to hit today's society? Would we be fully prepared, or would a sixth of the world's population be wiped out again?
The threat of having such a super virus is possible, but almost impossible in our knowledge so far.
May I remind you of H1N1? It spread throughout America in a matter of a few weeks! Deadly, no. Infective, yes. If something as infective as H1N1 were to hit us again but cause something inside our bodies that is needed to go "crazy," we'd be screwed. By the way, it is possible. The black plague, or death, happened.
May I remind you of H1N1? It spread throughout America in a matter of a few weeks! Deadly, no. Infective, yes. If something as infective as H1N1 were to hit us again but cause something inside our bodies that is needed to go "crazy," we'd be screwed. By the way, it is possible. The black plague, or death, happened.
black plague can be killed with antibiotics today. if they had them back then then it wouldn't have been a huge deal. today the disease would have to be viral (to prevent treatment for it), able to spread easily and quickly, and deadly, but not too deadly or it wouldn't have time to spread before it killed the person. this is a very unlikely and possibly impossible combo...there are always trade offs in life...even though viruses are technically not living organisms..hmmm bad analogy.
even though viruses are technically not living organisms..hmmm bad analogy.
People will be definitely disagreeing with that comment, so I'll put a future off-topic debate to rest now. Viruses aren't living because they can't reproduce on their own.
People will be definitely disagreeing with that comment, so I'll put a future off-topic debate to rest now. Viruses aren't living because they can't reproduce on their own.
good save, but i would have liked have shown them how ignorant they are. but yes everyone he is right.
We have something like that. It's called HIV. Look at the historic and global response to HIV and I'm willing to bet that would be your template for anything else.
It'd be a mix. Yes, we are quite prepared thankfully to modern medical advancements. But if a new sort of disease came that was as transmittable and deadly as the bubonic plague, we would have a nightmare on our hands. We live in a globalizing society. Travel is as easy as taking a crap on the toilet, provided you got the money, and regulations admittance to do it.
Add that to the fact the vast majority of the planets population live in crowded urban environments, a new disease that we are unfamiliar with would spread chaos and panic alone. Not to mention how fast it would spread. I think we'd be able to handle it, but not without a cost.
Remember H1N1? That was a rather minor strain of influenza that sure, was rather easy to combat due to it not being such a lethal virus. But imagine that something like that, only 100x worse, came about and that was entirely new strain of disease.
H1N1 was a new disease, a new influenza virus, and it caused enough panic for about a whole year. People wore quarantine masks out of paranoia of catching it.
Add that hysteria and public chaos into the mix, multiply it by 10 or more, then add in an actually lethal and even more transmittable disease, we have a huge problem.
If something that affected the brain, and made the victim insane and wanting to transmit the disease, came along, I would set up a vast wall around the affected area and build 20 forts at regular intervals along the wall to stop people getting out
in all actuallity we would quarintine the area if that didnt work then we might just Nuke Em
Except quarantine is nearly impossible. If anybody else has read The White Plague by Frank Herbert (I think), it deals with a similar issue. For a successful quarantine, the country would either have to be a totalitarian militaristic state, or a far left unified country (like Switzerland).
If something that affected the brain, and made the victim insane and wanting to transmit the disease, came along, I would set up a vast wall around the affected area and build 20 forts at regular intervals along the wall to stop people getting out
You're thinking of Zombies. What about a disease that attacked nerve endings, effectively paralyzing the victims, but was also airborne? Or something like the flu, which can have very inconspicuous symptoms? Or cancer, for that matter?
Beyond that, you'd still have to figure out the origin of the disease, and eliminate that, or all the killing would have been rather pointless.
Unfortunately, shooting people wouldn't really solve much.
