There is absolutely no biological weapon ever created that is a worse threat to the US than a “killer influenza”. Since the Spanish flu terrified America in 1918, medical authorities knew it was only a matter of time before a killer flu would return again. It is usually cyclic, and we are very past due for one.
No other disease even comes close in lethality. Right now, there is a candidate for the next killer flu that is from hell itself, H5N1, the Avian flu.
Typically, a normal flu kills between 30,000 and 50,000 Americans each and every year. A bad flu could kill as many as 100,000. But that is nothing compared to a killer flu.
The Spanish flu killed between 2.5% and 5% of the world’s population. 20% of the world’s population caught the disease. All told, it may have killed more people than the black plague.
And of those 1 in 5 who caught the disease, 1 in 5 of them died. A mortality *rate* of about 20%
America had a population at the time of about 50 million people. Between 300,000 and 3,000,000 died.
If the Spanish flu had hit today, 300,000,000 people would die.
H5N1, the Avian flu, has a mortality *rate* of 60%.
If 1 in 5 people in the world caught the disease, at that mortality rate, 720,000,000 people would die in the world.
America now has a population of over 330,000,000. If 1 in 5 Americans caught the disease, almost 40,000,000 Americans will die.
40 million Americans would die.
That would be every person in America’s top 40 largest cities.
Ummm, one in five catches it, one in five of those kicks the bucket, you say?
(330,000,000 / 5) / 5 = 13,200,000
If that number included all politicians, I'd be all for it.
There is new flu vaccine that works on all influenza A flus - those with H*N* characterization - influenza B types mutate too slowly to present a problem for us.
It will only be about 5 years before we all start getting the new vaccine and human flu will no longer be a problem.