OK, read the book The Stand by Steven King, or Outbreak by Michael Crichton, or The Andromeda Strain by Crichton, for that matter. All very good reads and will give you a good layman’s education as to what viruses are and can do.
I’d like to add The Last Centurion by John Ringo. Rough language and written in a sort of bloggish style that’s a little hard to get used to.
It has the world hit with a super bird flu with 60% of population mortality. US does better, at 35%.
This is combined with the start of an ice age and a Hilary like president who doesn’t want to “waste a good crisis,” so sets about comprehensively wrecking US agriculture and economy.
Creepily predictive of a lot of what Obama has been doing in the economy.