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Biotech / Medical : SARS and Avian Flu -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Giraffe who wrote (1843)	12/1/2004 12:41:03 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4232

<>> With 70% mortality, that would give 60 million dead Americans.<< How much disruption would that cause? Compared to other events in the last century nothing comes close. WWI: 15 million (world wide) Stalin's regime (1924-53): 20 million (Russia) WWII: 55 million (world wide) Mao Zedong's regime (1949-1975): 40 000 000 (China)> It would be a major scale catastrophe. One for the record books in the order of the Bubonic Plague of centuries ago. Americans are quite blase after a century of not much happening. Sure, they had Saving Private Ryan to watch and belatedly joined WWII and had some deaths [not many compared with other countries - barely 1 on the Richter scale]. When life is hunky dory, it's hard to avoid a sense of entitlement and recognize problems coming. Everyone else seems calm and unworried, so hey, why worry? It would cause a LOT of disruption for those 60 million dead Americans. Their productivity would decline dramatically. Their dependants would find it inconvenient to have to earn their own livings too. There would be missing people in other countries too, which would impact USA incomes since companies like QUALCOMM get money from sales of CDMA around the world. I would take some cans of baked beans and go and hide in the hills until it's all over and a vaccine is developed. Mqurice