by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
47 million Americans are 65+.
35%-90% death rate for WuFlu once you hit 65 years of age.
If even 2.1% of that 47 million died it would be, at least to Americans, the greatest event since WWII. If 10%-20% of that 47 million died, then, well, that’s a different matter altogether.
There would be no narrative if a pandemic struck. It would be written later by historians. We would have no idea if we were going to make it as species or not.
If things got bad enough, a number of nuclear-tipped regional wars would likely happen in quick succession. Isreal-Iran, DPRK-ROK/USA and India Pakistan could all happen very quickly and right about the same time.
There would be a massive refugee problem, the likes of which we’ve never seen since the end of WWII.
If China imploded as a result of WuFlu, that would fundamentally change the nature of the global economy.
The movie industry probably wouldn’t make it past a pandemic because people wouldn’t want to go to see the movies and AR/VR/MX would replace the entire industry in months, not years or decades.
Russia, China and the US might have revolutions and or civil wars if the death rate was bad enough. If the browning of America happened in three months not three decades because of a pandemic, the same forces that are tearing the country apart politically would simply tear it apart in a much more traditionally violent manner. You might see Blue States align with Canada and Red States try to reform the Confederate States of America.
You could make the argument that as many as 50 million Americans could die if a pandemic struck because of not just the Gray Plague, but any limited nuclear exchanges between the US and the DPRK, food shortages, revolution, civil war and general batshit bonkers behavior on the part of a panicked public.
The issue of continuation of government might be a real problem for a few months as powerful people through the US government got sick and or died. The ability to hold free-and-fair elections — or elections at all — in November might be put into serious doubt. It would be unprecedented.
A real pandemic would suck. We don’t want it. It’s not a movie. It would be real people, real lives and real tears of a grief. It would likely take us decades to come to grips with how many people died.
Let’s hope none of this happens.
