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The Middle East Plague Goes Global (has a mortality rate of about 55%, 5x more lethal than SARS)
Foreign Policy ^ | 6/28/13 | Laurie Garrett, Maxine Builder

Posted on 06/29/2013 7:27:20 AM PDT by LibWhacker

A scary virus is sweeping Saudi Arabia. Six million religious pilgrims are about to descend on the country from across the world. The result could be disastrous.

When the Black Death exploded in Arabia in the 14th century, killing an estimated third of the population, it spread across the Islamic world via infected religious pilgrims. Today, the Middle East is threatened with a new plague, one eponymously if not ominously named the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV, or MERS for short). This novel coronavirus was discovered in Jordan in March 2012, and as of June 26, there have been 77 laboratory-confirmed infections, 62 of which have been in Saudi Arabia; 34 of these Saudi patients have died.

Although the numbers -- so far -- are small, the disease is raising anxiety throughout the region. But officials in Saudi Arabia are particularly concerned.

This fall, millions of devout Muslims will descend upon Mecca, Medina, and Saudi Arabia's holy sites in one of the largest annual migrations in human history. In 2012, approximately 6 million pilgrims came through Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals associated with umrah, and this number is predicted to rise in 2013. Umrah literally means "to visit a populated place," and it's the very proximity that has health officials so worried. In Mecca alone, millions of pilgrims will fulfill the religious obligation of circling the Kaaba. And having a large group of people together in a single, fairly confined space threatens to turn the holiest site in Islam into a massive petri dish.

(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mers; plague; saudi; virus
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To: null and void

coronavirus in ME


21 posted on 06/29/2013 7:52:52 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: Average Al

That comment did not refer to the article.


22 posted on 06/29/2013 7:54:22 AM PDT by shibumi (Cover it with gas and set it on fire.)
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To: Average Al
>>> Not really, Coming to an Arab near you too!

Not if we don't let those guys back in!!!!

Let them pilgrims stay at their holy site forever.

23 posted on 06/29/2013 7:54:36 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: LibWhacker

I thought this article would have been about the spread of violent Islam.


24 posted on 06/29/2013 7:59:28 AM PDT by jdsteel (Give me freedom, not more government.)
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To: LibWhacker

Ask me if I give a s&%t.


25 posted on 06/29/2013 8:03:48 AM PDT by Wordkraft (Remember who the Collaborators are.)
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To: LibWhacker
Let's see now...moslems invented algebra...and the modern day equivalent of the bubonic plague.And to think that some would ask “what have you done for me *lately*?”
26 posted on 06/29/2013 8:03:53 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (The Civil Servants Are No Longer Servants...Or Civil.)
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To: jdsteel

It is, all the radicals go to Mecca and kiss the blarney stone. So this virus infestation would be rather targeted, even within Islam.


27 posted on 06/29/2013 8:05:18 AM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
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To: LibWhacker

Wonders who’s making the MERS-CoV ?.


28 posted on 06/29/2013 8:05:49 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: LibWhacker

There’s at least one flight a day (a jumbo...747/777/A380) from Dubai (and Jeddah) to JFK.And let’s not forget the flights that go Dubai/Jeddah->Heathrow->JFK.Of course when it hits here..”women and minorities hit hardest”.


29 posted on 06/29/2013 8:08:44 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (The Civil Servants Are No Longer Servants...Or Civil.)
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To: Average Al

“Not really, Coming to an Arab near you too! “

Did you mean a Mini-Mart?


30 posted on 06/29/2013 8:10:42 AM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like it)
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To: shibumi

Not really. Each year, thousands of Saudi “college students” arrive in the U.S., and never go home.


31 posted on 06/29/2013 8:11:21 AM PDT by PowderMonkey (WILL WORK FOR AMMO)
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To: LibWhacker

“The Middle East Plague” = Islam.


32 posted on 06/29/2013 8:12:45 AM PDT by BykrBayb (Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
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To: LibWhacker
Fact is, the globalist environmentalist movement, encapsulated in UN Agenda 21, wants to starve/slaughter five or six billion humans in the name of saving the planet.

I'd much rather have a plague do the job than let the globalist death-mongers do it.

The good thing about a plague is they have no control over it and are as likely to get wiped out as anyone else.

33 posted on 06/29/2013 8:19:43 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Who could have known that one day professional wrestling would be less fake than professional news?)
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To: ICCtheWay

Don’t forget though, the American muslims will be bringing it back with them.


34 posted on 06/29/2013 8:24:17 AM PDT by autumnraine (America how long will you be so deaf and dumb to thoe tumbril wheels carrying you to the guillotine?)
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To: shibumi

Really? When they bring it back here after their little trip to Mecca?


35 posted on 06/29/2013 8:24:54 AM PDT by autumnraine (America how long will you be so deaf and dumb to thoe tumbril wheels carrying you to the guillotine?)
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To: LibWhacker

When I try to link to this article, I get an advertisement asking me to signup for a subscription to the magazine. I cannot anywhere on the page find a way to exit off this dialogue box. I cannot read the article.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.


36 posted on 06/29/2013 8:32:46 AM PDT by miele man
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To: Sir Napsalot; neverdem; ProtectOurFreedom; Mother Abigail; EBH; vetvetdoug; Smokin' Joe; ...
Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

37 posted on 06/29/2013 8:40:21 AM PDT by null and void (Republicans create the tools of oppression, and the democrats gleefully use them!)
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To: LibWhacker
Death rates in Third World countries are unreliable. They only know about those who have gotten so sick as to require medical treatment.

Those who get it, stay home sick, and get better without ever seeing a doctor are not on the radar.

38 posted on 06/29/2013 8:43:48 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: shibumi

Remember when a muzzie “cleric” said “oh blessed Kitrina”?

Problem is this situation can blow back on us big time and, unlike AIDS, we can’t avoid it by not engaging in certain behavior.


39 posted on 06/29/2013 8:50:03 AM PDT by Aria ( 2008 & 2012 weren't elections - they were coup d'etats.)
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To: LibWhacker

Well losing half the muzzie population would not bring me to tears but I’m sure they will manage to spread it to everyone else. Britain is really going to be in for it as will all of those European countries that are infested with Muslims.


40 posted on 06/29/2013 8:50:35 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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