Showing posts with label Biological Warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biological Warfare. Show all posts

April 1, 2020

Pathogen Deaths - Worst Is Yet To Come

So maybe I am the only one who doesn't see how things are adding up.

But in the U.S. we have 4,000 dead from Coronavirus and 3/4 of the country (all the major population centers) are on lockdown. 

Yet, the projections are still for deaths in the U.S. to pile up between 100,000 to 240,000

How do you get from 4,000 to 240,000 with most people under lockdown?

The numbers of projected deaths were in the millions before the lockdown and social distancing, so yes the numbers are lower and better now. 

Still the escalating death toll is frightening in its magnitude of what is yet to come DESPITE the lockdown.

Moreover, the estimated death in the U.S. from the Flu was only 34,000 (2018-2019) and that's with everybody round and about doing their business.

My question is what happens after the (first) peak when they send people back to work and school?

There are still going to be people sick and contagious out there and the whole cycle STARTS AGAIN until we get the vaccine. 

And even after the vaccine, it may become seasonal like the flu or mutate and become even more virulent. 

It seems like there is plenty of reason to be cautious and concerned about what is yet to happen from here.

Then again we may be considered fortunate this time and actually beat this Coronavirus, but then again what happens when the NEXT really bad natural or man-made pathogen gets out? ;-)

Note: There are approximately 16 countries with deadly biological weapons programs. 

(Credit Photo: My wonderful so-in-law, Itzchak)
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June 4, 2015

Losing Deadly Control

So today we hear that there was a horrible mistake in which at least 52 sites (in 18 states here and 3 other countries) were inadvertently sent LIVE anthrax!!!

This after a prior incident in December where ebola had been mishandled and a technician potentially exposed. 

Again last August, they announced that a lab had accidentally cross-contaminated benign bird flu virus with a deadly strain of it. 

And there are at least five other major mishaps just since 2009 including more with anthrax and bird flu as well as with Brucella and botulism--these involved everything from using improper sterilization and handling techniques to inadvertent shipments of deadly live germs. 

Also in July, the CDC discovered six vials of LIVE smallpox in an unused storage room at the NIH.

This is reminiscent of similar gaffes by the military with an inadvertent shipment in 2007 by the Air Force of six nuclear warheads while the crew was unaware that they were even carrying it.

And here we go again (a doozy this time), information was disclosed in 2013 that we nearly nuked ourselves (specifically North Carolina) with 2 hydrogen bombs (260 times more powerful than that exploded on Hiroshima) in 1961. 

Yes, mistakes happen, but for weapons of mass destructions that we are talking about here, there are layers of safeguards that are supposed to be strictly in place. 

After each incident, it seems that some official acknowledges the mistakes made, says sorry, and claims things are going to be cleaned up now. 

But if the same or similar mistakes are made over and over again, then what are we really to believe, especially when millions of lives are at stake?

We have too much faith in the large bureaucratic system called government that despite how well it could be run, very often it isn't and is prone to large and dangerous errors and miscalculations.

With all due respect for our experts in these areas, we need to spend a lot more time and effort to ensure the safety of our most dangerous stockpiles--be it of nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological origin. 

We can't afford any more mistakes--or the next one could be more than just a simple (not) embarrassment.

What good is all the preparation to win against our enemies, if we are our own worst enemy or we have meet the enemy and it is us! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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August 15, 2014

The Ebola Bomb {^}

Ebola is the "one of the most virulent microbes" to mankind--there is no known cure and it has a 90% mortality rate. 

The death toll from the current outbreak of ebola in West Africa has now hit 1,145.


And according to the U.N. Health Agency, the number of deaths are "vastly underestimated."


Already, as of two weeks ago, more than 100 health workers had been infected. So who is going to care for the infected and sick, when the medical professionals themselves are sick and dead? 


According to the World Health Organization, Ebola is spread by "direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs, or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments infected with such fluids."


However, as frightening and deadly as ebola is as a disease that spreads and must be contained, what is even more terrifying is that there are those who believe that terrorists may try to harness it into a dirty bomb.


CBS reports that a disease expert from Cambridge University says that "A bigger and more serious risk is that a [terrorist] group manages to harness the virus as a power, then explode it in a bomb in a highly populated area."


A biological bomb like this "could cause a large number of horrific deaths," and would further spread the disease--and until it stops, no one knows. 


Visiting any number of local doctors offices, emergency rooms, or hospitals that are already filled with patients and with lengthy wait times to be treated, I cannot imagine what an Ebola (type) outbreak would look like.


I hope and pray we never find out the suffering, death, and havoc something a virus like this would cause--whether transmitted through human-to-human contact or by one of the dirtiest, sickest bombs you could imagine. 


(Source Screenshot: here with attribution to Unicef)

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