Scientist Claims Their Virus Simulation Kills 65 Million People
VIRUS SIMULATION KILLS 65 MILLION PEOPLE – According to Eric Toner, a scientist at John Hopkins Center for Health security, they weren’t surprised about the coronavirus outbreak in China.
According to Toner, he staged a simulation of a global pandemic using a coronavirus three months prior to the outbreak in Wuhan.
Coronavirus typically targets the respiratory system of the human body and could lead to pneumonia or the common cold. However, it was also responsible for the deadly SARS epidemic of the 2000s.
SARS infected about 8000 people and killed 774. The virus was also caused by a coronavirus strain from a wild animal, the civet cat.
I have thought for a long time that the most likely virus that might cause a new pandemic would be a coronavirus
Eric Toner
Based on an article from Business Insider, Toner’s simulation of a hypothetical deadly coronavirus pandemic suggested that in six months, nearly every country would be infected with the virus.
In addition, within 18 months, 65 million people worldwide could die.
Toner’s simulation used a fictional virus called CAPS. The analysis and simulation were part of a collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
They wanted to see what would happen if a pandemic started in Brazil’s pig farms. If we could recall the Wuhan Virus originated in a seafood market where live animals from the wild were sold.
What happened in his simulation?
The simulation of the outbreak started small. Farmers started developing symptoms resembling the flu or pneumonia. Afterward, the virus spread to poor urban neighborhoods in South America.
Flights were canceled and travels were down by 45% as governments tried desperately to find a vaccine for the new virus.
However, in their simulation, scientists couldn’t develop the vaccine in time to prevent a global pandemic. With SARS, it took another 20 months after the virus’ genome had been sequenced before any vaccine hit the horizon.
After 6 months, the virus spread globally and a year later, 65 million people have been killed by the virus.
However, with the developments in technology, some experts say that the earliest a vaccine against the Wuhan virus could be introduced would be in the summer of 2020.
If scientists don’t find a way to develop vaccines quicker, dangerous outbreaks will continue to spread.
But, Toner cited that cities have become more and more crowded and as humans continue to encroach on spaces reserved for wildlife, we could still create a breeding ground for infectious diseases.
It’s part of the world we live in now,” Toner said. “We’re in an age of epidemics.
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