John Clark wrote:
>
> <hal@finney.org> Wrote:
>
> > I think the problem with this specific scenario is that the modified
> > cold virus would kill the host before becoming infective enough to spread
> > itself widely. Colds make people emit a lot of mucus, sneeze and cough
> > to spread themselves, but it takes a while for this to happen.
>
> The symptoms of Ebola are massive systemic hemorrhaging in all the tissues
> of the body including the lungs. Infected blood pours out of every body orifice,
> even from the eyes and ears and around the fingernails. However to get Ebola you'd
> have to actually touch the blood, but if the virus were airborn like the common cold ....
That is a question of mechanics. Does the hemmorhaging flood the lungs too much
to allow the victim to have any breath to cough and sneeze?? Since its the big
sneeze that really propells the virus out, at up to 100 mph, you would need to
have a diaphragm musculature that is still intact and able to provide that sort
of force. If the virus is flooded by blood, and the diaphragm muscle is weakened
from undergoing the process of being turned to jelly, then you likely would not
see much spread via atmosphere, although contact transmission would likely be
highly effective, considering the amount of time the cold requires for
incubation, a carrier with the virus 'in hand' could be spreading the virus to
any phone, table, counter, desk, bed, or other surface they come in contact
with. You'd likely have some cases of infected families being torched in their
homes by neighbors, but I doubt this virus would be as communicable by the air
as the cold is.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:41 MDT