[bonesmccoy]

In the remainder of the thread, we will begin discussing various biological agents and their effects. The website that reflects currently federal governmental response is the cdc.gov site. The US Centers for Disease Control organizes the federal public health response to biological threats.

The CDC has categorized infectious agents at their website (http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/agentlist.asp).

Rather than recreating an explanation of each biological agent, we should suggest that readers review the CDC website.

I am starting this thread to analyze the economic impact of an attack.

We should analyze the following parameters:
1. Rate of spread of contagious disease
2. Economic impact of contagious diseases
3. How would we distinguish a biological attack from a "naturally" occuring disease pattern?
4. How would civilian response patterns be affected by a biological assault?
5. Are US population centers ready for a biological assault and can we mobilize a response in time?

[ewing]

proactive bump

[Aggie Mama]

I have no technical knowledge to provide, but I will be reading your thread with much interest. BTTT

[Centurion2000]

bump for later review ....

[Chancellor Palpatine]

A true bio attack will pretty much crash the economy, as people will be afraid to leave their homes and interact for a period of weeks as the infections burn out. It would be an unreasonably severe depression.

[CharlotteVRWC]

A MUST READ book is 'BioHazard' by Ken Alibek (a Russion Defecter).

As listed on the cover,,, this is "the chilling true story of the largest covert biological weapons program in the world - told from inside by the man who ran it".

When the Soviet Union broke up, some Russian Scientists involved in bioterror came to the USA, (and some went to Iraq!).

This book would convince anyone about the need to stop any bioterror program.

[The Great Satan]

[cmsgop]

bfl

[The Great Satan]

[The Great Satan]

[ConservativeLawyer]

This is going to be good. Bumped and Bookmarked.

[First_Salute]

On Septembe 11, 2001, I wrote in this forum that we needed not only the "A Teams" which have the public's attention, but reserve "B" and "C" teams for domestic emergencies. We needed by the first weeked after the attack, a mustering of people at every county fairground of this nation, for the purpose of selecting any of these community services in the event of another emergency:

Fire and Rescue

Medical / Corpsman

Police

Road and Bridge Repair.

When a city is attacked, its workers are going to rush in, though some, now, are scheduled to remain at their posts. Still, we have thousands of communities which do not have backup, nor backup in strength.

Every city of several 10,000 or more in this country, should have the steel and wood structures available to build at least one major bridge and in a matter of two or three days. No city has done this.

Communities need backup fire equipment and rescue equipment, stored in reserve.

Outlying buildings should have medical supplies and food stored, clothing and shelter --- actually now, many do have this.

But overall, we are short of people who have volunteered to be trained on the weekends, for the services required.

Every major city in this country should have a complete reserve fire fighting and rescue team.

Every city should have a complete heavy equipment reserve team.

And all these reserve teams must train and practice for at least one whole weekend per month.

It's not happening.

[GOPJ]

What's your gut feeling about SARS? Also, now that we're past the point of extreme hunger in China, why do all the major new flu and flu like diseases start there? If it was only poverty, starvation, and crowded conditions other areas are worse. Anyone?

[templar]

IMO, if anyone wanted to truly damage an enemy long term, they would go after it's agriculture. Something which is best accomplished by biological agents.

OTOH, terrorism doesn't require a great deal of real damage to accomplish it's purpose, just a feeling of vulnerability and helplesness on the part of the public.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This should be a very interesting thread as it develops.

Here is a lengthy but important document which should be read by all!

Jihadis in the Hood
Race, Urban Islam and the War on Terror

JIHAD IN AMERICA:

To find all articles tagged or indexed using JIHAD IN AMERICA, click below:
	click here >>>	JIHAD IN AMERICA	<<< click here
(To view all FR Bump Lists, click here)

[Lessismore]

It is not clear whether an infectious agent has to be "weaponized" in the high-tech, mass warfare, sense. Wouldn't it be effective to spread an agent more manually by direct application to salad bars? How about having someone in a coat check room at a restaurant apply the material to buttons, zipper pulls and collars? Any place where people leave garments unattended or in the care of persons they don't know is a vulnerability?

[bonesmccoy]

Your comments appreciated.

In answer to my posited question on rate of spread of disease, I'd like to submit this analysis.

Assuming the following:
There is a rate of potential contagion defined by the number of people the index case meets in a set amount of time.

Pc = people contacted per unit time
Pnc = people never contacting agent

Each agent has a rate of "successful" infection, where a given susceptible person is exposed to the germ and becomes symptomatic.

Ki = ratio of people infected over total people contacted per unit time.

Ki = Pi/Pc, where Pi = number of infected people

Let's assume the following:
A. a city of 20,000 people, where each person regularly interacts with 20 people per day.

B. 50% of the contacts per day are uncontacted and 50% are regularly contacted individuals.

C. The organism successfully infects 50% of the contacts and creates immunity in the remaining 50%.

D. Of those infected, 30% become symptomatic.

E. Illness has one week incubation period.


Here are the numbers:

Week One:
1 index case exposes 20 people per day (140 per week).
If 50% of all exposed people get infected, 140 contacts creates 70 infected individuals.

Week Two:
1 index case gets ill and is isolated at home/hospital (no longer spreading disease)
70 infected cases contact 20 people per day (infecting 4900 people over the week).

Week Three:
If 30% of infected cases become very ill, 21 cases (who became ill in week one) will fall critically ill (and thus, be removed from spreading disease). This means that roughly 4950 people are still spreading disease.

Week Four:
As the disease is identified in week three, the 21 index cases will alert national health authorities regarding the spread of disease. However, the undiagnosed infected people will still be spreading disease (and that's 4950 people). If they are continuing in their regular activities (and reach 140 new individuals per week), they will infect 346430 people by weeks end.

If the 30% of the people who got infected in week two become ill in Week Three, over 1400 patients will need admission to the hospital in that area.

It is unlikely that hospital capacity can handle that number of cases.

This would necessitate a national emergency with mobilization of national guard capability. Since national guard capabilities may be stretched thin if foreign threats require deployment, civilian capacity will need to handle one thousand cases in one week without national guard intervention.

Perhaps this is the starting point of analysis for civilian medical response capabilities.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Indexing. Thanks for starting this, bones.

[carpio]

Book marking Bump

[Psycho_Runner]

I think the economic repercussions will be far greater than what is the reality. Part of the economic chaos will be based on ignorance more than anything else. Most people don't understand that CBR is divided essentially into 2 categories, persitent and non persistent. Why is this so important? Lets look at two examples, Anthrax and Nerve Agent. Anthrax is persistent and decontamination is expensive, but the reality is we have antibiotics and decontamination process to counter the deadly effects.
Nerve agent on the other hand is non persistent, that is, its potency quickly degenerates upon dispersion. The problem with nerve agent is twofold, it acts quick and hard to detect. Wonder why the Marines have pigeons nearby?
One major factor to watch for on a CBR attack is the wind direction. The wind direction more so for Nerve Agents than Anthrax. The wind direction is serious if you are downwind from a cbr attack.

Regardless if the attack is chemical or biological, the result is the same, therefore the difference is the behavoir of the respective deadly warfare agent.

My humble wisdom comes from the Army Reserve training. (40 hours at Pine Bluff, 15 years ago) Though long ago I don't think there are any new chemicals.

[Spirited]

Outstanding-idea-for-a-thread-bump!