Achoo

The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people:

The plague emerged in two phases. In late spring of 1918, the first phase, known as the "three-day fever," appeared without warning. Few deaths were reported. Victims recovered after a few days. When the disease surfaced again that fall, it was far more severe. Scientists, doctors, and health officials could not identify this disease which was striking so fast and so viciously, eluding treatment and defying control. Some victims died within hours of their first symptoms. Others succumbed after a few days; their lungs filled with fluid and they suffocated to death.

You see, when I started writing this article, H1N1 (i.e. Swine flu) was slowly drifting out of the news; but due to tardiness, it is now back in the headlines. That makes the above look a bit more sensationalist than intended. But nothing in this post is specific to this or the next epidemic.

One of the strengths of human societies is that we have built in redundancy. Many lone carnivores simply die if they get too ill or damaged to hunt. If we get ill, usually others can fill in our functions, allowing for rest and recovery.

One of our massive weaknesses is that because we are physically close to many others in our species, viruses get to infect hundreds at a time. Many of us are told not to come in to work if we are infected, for fear of what will happen to the team. An eagle virus, by comparison, would spread very slowly indeed.

Western societies are also getting more segmented and stratified. At one time, everyone was a hunter gatherer, with a little specialised knowledge of local flora and fauna spread through a clan. If you could hunt one animal, you would eventually be able to hunt a similar one before starving. Survival was hard, making everyone less likely to be surprised by new disasters. But the post apocalyptic films that have wily heroes scavenging for parts are no longer possible. Most consumer machines are black boxes, and more systems are centrally managed. Fewer things can be repaired. As I've mentioned in previous articles modern national armies fight with a fragile umbilical chord that supplies them and limits their adaptable movement. Everyone else fights with AK47's, because any goat herder can maintain one.

A virus, maybe related to a strain in existence today, will eventually act as an extinction event for modern human society. We will not suddenly drop like flies, but society will break down because a garment designer couldn't revive a damaged digital communications structure, and a hacker would be hard pressed to mass produce clothing. We will revert back to a society that the available redundancy can support. This is equivalent to the often repeated threat to "bomb a nation back to the Stone Age".

In Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham described how a true disaster is a combination of seemingly unrelated events. This form of black swan cannot reasonably be predicted, making national efforts to plan their way out of possible disasters largely for the benefit of the media.

So having some Tamiflu and a knowledge of what you need to survive will get you through the first few days. But get used to a serious amount of downsizing.