Sorry Tom, but I agree with Stephan--He's done his homework. If you doubt it, then take the time to read the scenario and results of the "Dark Winter" exercise conducted this summer. A few of their findings include;
"Initial innoculation strategy was intriniscally unsustainable before the first infection showed up in the hospital."
(My Note* basically infected people infected many others before the disease became obvious. They surmise 10 people are infected by those already ill BEFORE they show the symptoms of disease/or seek medical treatment. In a situation like this, it takes time to backtrack how a victim was exposed/who he has now exposed-- and this exercise showed cleary that the disease spreads much faster than our ability to track down and quarantine other possible victims.)
"Those in charge don't understand the scope of an initial infection."
"The medical care system was overwhelmed quickly."
"Current vaccine reserves cannot contain an epidemic." They ran out of vaccine with only the first 3 states population.
Their findings showed that quarantine and forced travel restrictions were the only option left to try to retain control of the disease spreading--in this exercise that option failed miserably.)
The results were that interstate commerce collapsed, international commerce was totally halted, food/water/energy supplies ran out quickly and the govt decided to impose martial law within a short period of time.
"Dark Winter"Thank you for posting the "DARK WINTER" links. Perhaps this will convince even the ebullient, preternaturally optimistic TomB that there really is very little (if any) "GOOD NEWS ABOUT SMALLPOX"!!!
That was seriously scary! If those muslim creeps do this, we need send some of it back to them first, then nuke them.