I don’t think it is a bioweapon either but if you were going to create a bioweapon you don’t need it to be lethal, if it’s lethal you would not get as much bang for the buck since the dead are not that big a burden. What you would aim for is a weapon that makes people very ill, too ill to work or to fight- but does not take away the hope of recovery. You just need it to incapacitate the victims to burden those who are healthy with tending to vast numbers of sick patients, and you need it to be known to be nonlethal so that stressed caregivers do not give up and drop the burden of tending to the ill, yet bad enough that victimes must be tended. That way you force the enemy to commit much of his resources, transport, food, etc., to the task- resources he cannot use against you.
You make a valid point.
But I argue that just incapacitating some targets would not be very effective. It appears that many, if not most infected people do not suffer serious symptoms. A much more effective bioweapon would cause massive incapacitation and death. Not the case here so far.
And it would be extremely reckless for the bioengineers to create a weapon before creating a protection for their own population...
“I don’t think it is a bioweapon either but if you were going to create a bioweapon you don’t need it to be lethal, if it’s lethal you would not get as much bang for the buck since the dead are not that big a burden. What you would aim for is a weapon that makes people very ill, too ill to work or to fight- but does not take away the hope of recovery. You just need it to incapacitate the victims to burden those who are healthy with tending to vast numbers of sick patients, and you need it to be known to be nonlethal so that stressed caregivers do not give up and drop the burden of tending to the ill, yet bad enough that victimes must be tended. That way you force the enemy to commit much of his resources, transport, food, etc., to the task- resources he cannot use against you.”