Airborne Ebola Virus

[stubear1012]

I just finished reading a series of books dealing with an airborne Ebola virus. The plot is that the Ebola virus mutates into an airborne virus in Kenya. A terrorist group finds out about the virus and sends in a group of followers to be aid workers with out protective gear. They do not know that they are now infected. After a few days, they are sent to an airport and then sent all over the world to start an epidemic. American Intelligence finds out about the plot to late to stop it. However they alert the other intelligence services and other governments. Some terrorists were stopped and the various governments started enforcing quarantine laws. However, enough terrorist and other infected people get through so that a global epidemic starts.

About a year later, the epidemic is gone but there is a massive death toll. Only about half the population of America, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and so on survive. The key factor was the size of the hospital system and the ability to maintain control. In the rest of the world, the epidemic overwhelms the hospital systems with a 90% death rate.

You are head of the government because you survived while the others ahead of you in succession are dead. The basic infrastructure is intact. While stretched to their limits, the local governments with the help of the military kept control. There was some rioting and looting but overall basic services were maintained. Currently a rationing program is providing the survivors with a functional diet. There is phone and internet service so there are communications with the other countries. Everyone has lost family members to the virus and some have lost everyone. The terrorist network has been destroyed.

What is your plan for helping the country recover from this?

Thank you

 

[Wendigo]

I'm not an expert on disease but my question is if you sent some people infected with airborne ebola across the world would it result in such a large death toll?

 

[Theoretical_TJ]

I'm not an expert on disease but my question is if you sent some people infected with airborne ebola across the world would it result in such a large death toll?

There's airborne and then there's airborne. Pneumonic, marmot-based plague is nasty as can be but it's not been apocalyptic. If this spreads like the flu or measles, then yikes.

Has a vaccine developed or is it that everyone who has survived is now immune?

 

[Wendigo]

There's airborne and then there's airborne.

Airborne meaning by cough, sneeze or the infected just exude it from their body wherever they go?

 

[The Red]

What is your plan for helping the country recover from this?

It depends on whether we're supposed to Randall Flagg or Mother Abigail?

 

[stubear1012]

In the book, the people who survived would regularly donate blood plasma which was given to others. While some died from the plasma, the death rate was a lot lower. Survivors who refused to show up to blood centers were arrested and sent to camps. In the book, the prison population was infected and the survivors were sent to the camps. In the camps, there was mandatory harvesting of plasma. With the death rate so high, there was no time to develop a vaccine. There is a sharing of all scientific discoveries about the virus and treatments methods.

 

[Theoretical_TJ]

Airborne meaning by cough, sneeze or the infected just exude it from their body wherever they go?

It's airborne by cough or sneeze. The key is how well does it survive on surfaces and how much close exposure are you looking at being necessary.

Example, I went to a counter service burger shop. Not a second after I ordered the cashier sneezed and then later I saw her rubbing her nose. It was flu season and I knew I'd be picking up whatever she had (cold/flu are both highly communicable). I didn't even bother asking for a refund or rating elsewhere; I knew I was cooked.

Pneumonic plague is less communicable, though still airborne. If it were as bad as the flu in that respect, large swaths of Manchuria would have died of it, possibly spreading it into China.

 

[CalBear]

The problem with this sort of scenario is that the Basic Reproduction Number (aka R0) is never discussed, nor are the other changes that are needed to make the virus a reasonable infectious agent. The R0 of Ebola is 1.5-2.5 in its current form, that puts it at the low end of spread (influenza is 2-3, Measles is 12-18). Ebola is a long time favorite for this sort of thing (Clancy used it years ago in Executive Orders) because it has a terrifying reputation, but that ignores the truth of the disease

The reality also is that it takes shockingly little over overwhelm the medical systems of even First World countries, especially when you are discussing Ebola or any other hemorrhagic fever, where you need to provide continuous medical support focused on maintaining electrolytes, blood pressure, and O2 levels. The are nowhere near enough medical professionals with the level of training necessary to provide the sort of support, there is nowhere near enough blood/blood plasma, interferon, or even hospital beds. If a disease has a 90% death rate, it isn't going to be 50% simply because you live in the First World. It might "only" be 70% because of the underlying health of the population (SARS is an interesting example of this, when it hit the U.S. it went from andoverall 9.8% fatal rate to a head cold. To this day no one can figure out when Canada had 251 cases with 44 deaths and the U.S. had 27 cases reported and zero deaths, although some wags have suggested that Americans eat so much unhealthy crap that the virus never stood a chance a la War of the Worlds).

 

[Theoretical_TJ]

I knew measles was communicable to a very high degeee, but it's that much more so than the flu? Yikes...

 

[CalBear]

I knew measles was communicable to a very high degeee, but it's that much more so than the flu? Yikes...

Measles is the real deal when you get to infectious diseases, of the "common infectious diseases it is pretty much in a class by itself. An R naught of 18 means every case can be expected to cause 18 new cases assuming 100% of the population is susceptible. This, of course, is very rare, and even then the R0 depends on secondary factors, including potential number of hosts (i.e. if there are 19 people in the village, the disease will stop after one reproduction, limiting impact to a low total number). Depending on source you consult pertussis can get a R figute in the double digits.

this is why people have to get their children vaccinated. One case will tear through an unprotected groups like a wildfire.

 

[Blackfox5]

If I understand the scenario right, the advanced economies of Europe, North America, and the Pacific survive with half of their populations, and the rest of the world is practically depopulated and civilization has collapsed.

The survivors are basically looking at a Zero Hour scenario after WWII except that 1) the economic infrastructure is still in place, but 2) the epidemic can begin again.

In terms of basic commodities essential to survival, the surviving countries are probably OK. Industrial civilization will not go away. However, the loss of much of East Asia had destroyed a lot of the high tech supply chain. That can be rebuilt by the surviving advanced economies, but it will take time before there is sufficient mass production for certain items.

The priorities will be to 1) rebuild the economy, 2) prepare for the next wave of epidemic, and 3) secure anything dangerous left behind in the depopulated areas (nuclear weapons most likely). The obvious steps would seem to be:

1) Repudiate all governmental debt and reset private debt so a level playing field can begin for economic growth and investment into the areas needed. Likely there is currency reform with survivors receiving a base lump payment (to start everyone even) plus a confiscatory exchange rate of the old currency to the new currency. This will give the government the cash it needs to make critical investments. Any government expenses that are not essential will need to be cut to the bone.

2) Destruction/cremation/burial of the mass dead to reduce health risks.

3) International and even long distance domestic travel to be kept to a minimum until sufficient measures are in place to insure quarantine should the disease reappear. Most international diplomacy to be done virtually with face to face meetings minimized.

4) Reorientation of the surviving economies on local supply chains in order to restart economic growth while keeping international cargo to essentials only. This will be relaxed as people gain confidence in the ability of their area to achieve quarantine.

5) In conjunction with the other international governments, develop a plan and send teams to secure any remaining WMDs located in the depopulated areas.

6) If raw materials are needed for economic survival, send teams to those vital areas to restart production. North America is probably OK, but Europe and Japan/Korea will need oil and perhaps other commodities. Either the US will need to generate sufficient surplus and ship them, or certain areas will need to be "colonized" in order to set up production the home country needs.

7) Put as many resources as possible into the healthcare system, ebola research, and civil defense/emergency relief. The weakened population will be susceptible to secondary diseases taking advantage of weakened immune systems and exhausted medical care providers, so rebuilding capacity here is critical even if there is not a second ebola outbreak.

8) Given the need to repopulate the world, I imagine that while some birth control will remain legal, that most abortion will be outlawed.

After five years mostly spent on making sure the surviving areas are stable, the next years will be spent reestablishing control of nearby depopulated territories. There are probably international agreements assigning each surviving area/country a "zone" where they are responsible for "rehabilitating" the region (i.e. eventual colonization). The US will get the Western hemisphere and part of the Pacific. Europe will get Africa and Middle East. The rest of the Pacific will get East Asia and most of the Pacific. There will be a lot of joint international research and exploration. That almost all the surviving governments are democracies will go a long way to ensure trust between them.

Even in this scenario, the surviving population is probably between half a billion to a billion which was the global population sometime in the mid to late 1700s.

 

[stubear1012]

Thank you Blackfox5 for these priorities! This is the information that I was looking for.

Regards

Stubear1012

 

[Wendigo]

Measles is the real deal when you get to infectious diseases, of the "common infectious diseases it is pretty much in a class by itself. An R naught of 18 means every case can be expected to cause 18 new cases assuming 100% of the population is susceptible. This, of course, is very rare, and even then the R0 depends on secondary factors, including potential number of hosts (i.e. if there are 19 people in the village, the disease will stop after one reproduction, limiting impact to a low total number). Depending on source you consult pertussis can get a R figute in the double digits.

this is why people have to get their children vaccinated. One case will tear through an unprotected groups like a wildfire.

If someone made an engineered airborne ebola with an R0 of say 10 for example and released it in NYC what would the total damage be in terms of infected/deaths?

 

[Apollo 20]

...The priorities will be to...

8) Given the need to repopulate the world, I imagine that while some birth control will remain legal, that most abortion will be outlawed...

This is a good list, but I think this one is off. You can repopulate once things have stabilized, but in the short term, babies are a resource drain both in the sense that they need things while producing nothing and pregnancies take women out of the labor force at a time when everyone would be needed. Accordingly, at least in the short term, I should think that children would be discouraged. That will obviously end at some point, but only after a period of time to get things in order. And even then, I don't think an abortion ban would go over well in the developed world where you will have women in positions of leadership who will balk at anything that smacks of an attempt to reestablish traditional gender roles. Whatever policy that emerges to encourage children will be more carrot than stick.

 

[ben0628]

Meanwhile the country of Iceland has closed of its borders and has become the most wealthy nation in the world while North Korea has become the most powerful.

 

[Riain]

Isn't ebola pretty fragile? I think it needs hot and humid conditions to survive, so if someone in with it sneezed in New York in winter it would die in the cold almost instantly, similarly in Melbourne in summer the dryness of the heat would kill it. So the only places it would thrive as an airborne disease would be tropical areas, everywhere else it would fizzle out very quickly. On the other hand it looks like Southern Asia and South America are fucked.

 

[Catsmate]

If you're looking at an airborne Ebola-like virus I suggest you look at the first outbreak of Reston virus at Hazleton Laboratories in Virginia in 1989 (link). The handling of that incident still gives epidemiologists nightmares.
Initially RESTV was thought to be a new Ebola strain (in fact it's a related virus within the same genus); if it had been even partially as deadly as true EVD (rather than basically harmless to humans) there would have been a serious problem.

 

[gianni_rivera]

The problem with this sort of scenario is that the Basic Reproduction Number (aka R0) is never discussed, nor are the other changes that are needed to make the virus a reasonable infectious agent. The R0 of Ebola is 1.5-2.5 in its current form, that puts it at the low end of spread (influenza is 2-3, Measles is 12-18). Ebola is a long time favorite for this sort of thing (Clancy used it years ago in Executive Orders) because it has a terrifying reputation, but that ignores the truth of the disease

The reality also is that it takes shockingly little over overwhelm the medical systems of even First World countries, especially when you are discussing Ebola or any other hemorrhagic fever, where you need to provide continuous medical support focused on maintaining electrolytes, blood pressure, and O2 levels. The are nowhere near enough medical professionals with the level of training necessary to provide the sort of support, there is nowhere near enough blood/blood plasma, interferon, or even hospital beds. If a disease has a 90% death rate, it isn't going to be 50% simply because you live in the First World. It might "only" be 70% because of the underlying health of the population (SARS is an interesting example of this, when it hit the U.S. it went from andoverall 9.8% fatal rate to a head cold. To this day no one can figure out when Canada had 251 cases with 44 deaths and the U.S. had 27 cases reported and zero deaths, although some wags have suggested that Americans eat so much unhealthy crap that the virus never stood a chance a la War of the Worlds).

Canada probably has much bigger and concentrated Chinese communitu that still has a lot of contact with China Hong Kong and people from there.

 

[CalBear]

Canada probably has much bigger and concentrated Chinese communitu that still has a lot of contact with China Hong Kong and people from there.

Possibly. Although the population of San Francisco is 21.4% ethnic Chinese (172,000+) and as a major Pacific Rim port/Silicon Valley anchor airport site has considerable contact with China (and a high number of immigrants).

As I note, the reason has, to this date, proved to be elusive.