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Since there's now a "Flu Virus Outbreak" on the nightly news, what would it take to artificially introduce a new influenza strain that becomes a US pandemic?

Assume a new flu virus has been created already in a lab somewhere (skip the biology).

Also, who would benefit? Obama-care advocates? Wealthy plutocrats? North Korea?

(I'm just throwing out some bad ideas.)

Rural America would be fine, it's the cities that would be depopulated.

It would need to have certain qualities to cause any serious disruption.  Any disease which incapacitates people too rapidly tends to be self-limiting (the haemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola are like this), no matter how deadly - so you want something which is highly contagious but which also has a reasonable incubation period so that people are spreading it around before being aware that they're ill.  You also want something which is spread by droplets and which survives on surfaces.  You also need something to which survivors don't develop immunity so that they are infected and infectious for life and which disables those it doesn't kill.

If enough people die/become ill, the US would grind to a halt in terms of economic activity, maintaining infrastructure, etc.  Essential services would probably break down quite quickly and if transportation was seriously affected you'd probably see food shortages quite quickly too.

Ok, I think influenza qualifies on all points except it doesn't permanently disable survivors. Mortality rates are highest among the young and the old.

Yeah, to cripple an economy you really need your workforce and your primary and secondary producers to be disabled for a significant period of time, if not permanently.  You want it to be bad enough that you can't solve the problem with immigration, so this needs to be a disease which makes people disabled and contagious long-term and for which there's no prospect of a vaccine for at least a decade.

I agree - the flu won't damage the top producers in the economy.

Ok, what if that's the point? Who would benefit? The flu could create a panic by hurting the most vulnerable people in society without damaging the production of the nation.

The workers also would be afraid from becoming sick and stay home. Economy will suffer.

Okay, if I were a super villain what you would do to cause a widespread panic with a virus at least is not just make one, you would target the most basic of food, so anything with ingredients like flour or milk, so you attack the wheat farms, the cattle farms, water and so on, anything which people generally rely on, then the amount of disease that spreads from that because it infects the humans that ingest it would be catastrophic and of course the amount of panic the infections would cause would spread everywhere making it extremely difficult for the government to pinpoint the source.

It would actually be disturbingly easy to take down a western country because of both how centralised and disorganised everything is in the government most of the time.

how airborne herpes?

Extremely easy. 

All you do is simply announce on aforementioned program channel that it has been done. 
As you demonstrated, we all believe everything said there is truth so that is what happened. 

Beneficiaries: big pharma, police, advertisers. 

Try Plague Inc for android, and you can do it yourself, haha.

Go to work when you are running a temperature and don't wash you hands. Sneeze when you are close to co workers, best in lifts between departments. Go to the toilet and smear some snot ot the fossets.

You can cost your employer $100.000!!!

Thats about what you can do with the flu, not contagious enough for anything serious.

Flu viral infection is easy it happens every time the season changes and vectors are airports.

Antibiotics are for bacterias and will not help against a viral infection.

An airborn 3 day virus with no effective cure and human weakness would be effectively be delivered via airports. In fact via airports you could prolly infect the whole world.

I'm openly plotting nuclear attack against US using bomb-laden homing pigeons. And I wank in the same time. This should be taken just as serious as OP post, right?Without antibiotics I would be dead at least two times right now. First from pneumonia and second time from infected wound cut with rusty metal edge from sewers.

Century ago there was no medical testing and understanding about immune system as it is now.

Spanish influence or whatever the epidemic in 1918 was called was caused by relatively weak virus and many fatalities were from overreacting immune system. Also century ago the food was not available, many workers and children were starving. This weakens immune system and there were many cases of infection and death from tuberculosis, pneumonia and such things that are curable by antibiotics today.

My grandma was born in 1918 and she used to tell horror stories she heard as a child. And every time I had the flu, she would look at me as I wasn't gonna make it.

You Americans has too laxed an attitude towards antibiotics.  It takes around 5 months before your immune system is up to speed after an antibiotics cure. You also have the added benefit of several resistant strains in the wild. Antibiotics used in farming also has the same effect on the general population.

Since the 1970'ies Europe has been increasingly restrictive administering antibiotics from general practices. The broard spectered effective antibiotics are only used on hospitialized patients, if their prognosis is life threatening. Likewise vets are thightly controlled and if they administer antibiotics for growth purposes, they loose their license.

The difference in Europe,  is pehaps a less powerfull drug lobby. TB very seldom occur among our homeless.

The immune system can be brought back to full strength much quicker if proper steps are taken, but resistance is certainly an issue.

The immune system damage is mostly caused by elimination of useful bacteria, and these can be replenished by eating live foods and/or taking a probiotic following your course of antibiotics.

OP here, I'm posting this because it's likely someone is already plotting it.

The advantage of posting is that now it's out in the open. An out-in-the-open analysis of who would benefit will help save lives because the public is alerted beforehand and the perpetrators usually make mistakes. (An alert populace can find those mistakes.)

Usually in less than a week a normal person is fine from flu, just some fever, some symptoms, that's all.

Knock knock

Huh? Americans too lax about antibiotics? Do you understand that I can't even get antibiotics without a prescription here.

Europeans are too laxed about antibiotics, I can buy them over the counter. Specifically I meant eastern european countries that chew on antibiotics like candy. And you can buy them OTC.

But I am quiet sure that western countries like France and Italy use more antibiotics than USA.

edit: flu has no relevance to antibiotics, you need antivirals anyway

I was answering to a combined statement which also included TB and bacterial infections. Good to hear that US has become more carefull with antibiotics. My knowledge about you might be outdated. You are also right that not all european countries are equally thight about it. I live in Scandinavia And my GP wont perscribe anything other than the least effective, she is dead serious about it. Not that I ever nedded them, but I asked her about her opinion on it.

We have had doctors on tv stating that they are reluctant to use the effective antibiotics for terminal geriatric patients, that the choice is between saving very sick children or prolonging old peoples life another month!!

My oldest daughter, when she was 9, got a spinal pneumokok infection after an ear infection. She got 200mL of the heavy stuff for three days, and I'm forever greatfull. If she had had a resistant strain, there would'nt have been enough time to try other antibiotics..