"The virus doesn't contaminate buildings, once the people are gone the virus is gone" Yeah that's normal for viruses "It's completely unlike how anthrax spores can contaminate a city long term" Yeah cause anthrax is not a virus
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That's the *definition* of a virus, it's just a bundle of organic molecules *without* the biological machinery to carry on life processes like self-repair and replication, it has to hijack your cells So it can't do like anthrax and form a spore, when it dries up it's just dirt
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Ugh this kind of thing in particular does bring out the Tyson in me When an expert character in a thing states a true fact but they say it like it's some kind of unique phenomenon or big damn deal and it's not
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Like Crichton's Jurassic Park saying the dinosaurs were deliberately nerfed for survival in the outside world because they can't synthesize the amino acid lysine and need to get it from their food That's ALL animals, NONE of us can synthesize lysine, it's an essential amino acid
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The worst thing is that that becomes a plot point in the actual book and he doesn't realize how stupid it makes his experts look "Seems like the escaped raptors have been hunting chickens, which are rich in lysine" Wait and you didn't expect that
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Did you think chicken was hard to find or something
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Also, like, isn't Wuhan a pretty big city? Like if the virus had originated in the US wouldn't it be like finding an old novel that was like "the Pittsburgh virus" and being like ZOMG
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Its the capital of Hubei province and has 11 million people. New York City is 8 million. So really the better comparison is “the NYC virus”
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Covid-19 can survive for a lot longer on surfaces than this imaginary virus. The text after the underlined bit actually describes the reasons why the real virus *isn't* a good biological weapon, unlike the fictional one.
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We have a virus that has fairly low lethality (much higher than flu, but way lower than, say, anthrax) and is very transmissible. This is exactly what you don't want for a bioweapon. You can't control who it kills.
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