>>The tradgedy of five hundred deaths is terrible. The tradgedy of 83.4 million deaths is unthinkable, at least to any sane person.<<
People are not thinking clearly about this.
Casualties from enemy action are unavoidable. The goal is to minimize the number of casualties, and to defeat the enemy's strategy.
Focussing on a "zero-casualty" approach to a smallpox attack is foolish, as it will tend to prevent us from pursuing effective strategies to minimize casualties and to defeat the enemy.
One of many questions: are we sure that the strain that will be used by terrorists is standard smallpox and not a cocktail of several diseases....for instance, has anyone read about "blackpox"????
Also, we do not have to be innoculated UNLESS there is absolute certainty that we are being exposed....correct?????