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I think that 30% was years ago. I think it also meant those who got the smallpox had a 30% death rate but many people didn't get smallpox then because they had immunity. There were also two kinds of smallpox --one variola major was very deadly, the other variola minor only killed about 1-2%. Variola minor prevented people from getting the worse kind. Agricultural people had exposure to cowpox which also provided immunity.

The death rate among American Indians who had absolutely no immunity was around 70-90%. Also, if the smallpox were to come from samples stolen from the Soviet biolgical weapons program, the death rates could be very high. The Soviets collected strains from all over the world during the WHO eradication program. They chose a strain from India collected in 1967 as the basis of their research because it was particularly lethal.

Thats what I'm afraid of, it's definitely not going to be smallpox from a strain of variola minor, it will be one of the very lethal ones. I'm waiting to see who around here gets the smallpox vaccine, then I'll just obtain a 'sample' and go from there. I'd take my kids up to the mountains where they wouldn't have any contact with people but it's going to be getting kind of cold up there soon.