It’s not like Plague Inc where you can just “create” a new disease, it had to have come from somewhere. How can a disease we haven’t seen before pop up seemingly overnight and spread worldwide in just a few months? Is it a sudden mutation of an existing disease? If so, what could cause such a quick transformation from something we know to something we haven’t seen before and are completely unprepared to fight?
In: Biology
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There is an enormous “reservoir” of potential pathogens out there in the world, constantly spreading and mutating.
* Many can’t make the inter-species jump to humans because they work on biology that we don’t have.
* Some that can make the jump only result in mild symptoms and get lost in the “noise” of run-of-the-mill fevers and flu.
* Some that can make the jump are caught early and eradicated or quarantined by the international medical community.
* Some that can make the jump burn through the human host population too quickly to spread very far.
* A few can make the jump and are not so lethal that they can spread through the population.
In general, people should practice good hygiene and not go “turning over rocks” (e.g., clearcutting jungle, digging in permafrost, living in close proximity to waste or animals) to minimize contact with new variant diseases.
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