Comment by DennisP
5 hours ago
Yes, but natural plague isn't what people are worried about here. Russia has worked on bioengineered versions that would be much worse.
5 hours ago
Yes, but natural plague isn't what people are worried about here. Russia has worked on bioengineered versions that would be much worse.
Bubonic plague is not a good bioweapon. It doesn't form spores and requires fleas to spread. It can spread through aerosolized droplets, but that's really no better than a regular chemical weapon.
It's great for terrorist attacks, but not really a good weapon.
The Soviets developed antibiotic resistant strains of the plague meant to be dispersed over cities as aerosolized droplets. Inhaling these droplets causes pneumonic plague (coincidentally the type of infection this lab worker supposedly had which seems odd) and pneumonic plague can be spread human to human via coughing once the infection has been allowed to incubate for a few days. It can also be passed to animals from humans which could result in another vector for infection via handling, butchering or eating infected animals resulting in either primary bubonic plague or pharyngeal plague. Untreated pneumonic plague is almost always fatal so it goes without saying that antibiotic resistant plague is effectively 100% fatal in all contracted cases.
It would be more effective than chemical weapons in that it is more persistent, has delayed action and can be spread person to person or through animal vectors. This means it would be possible to deploy it more discretely and that it requires greater effort to contain. You're right that it is a better weapon for a terrorist attack or asymmetric warfare. It would still make a good weapon for creating an undue amount of stress on a region's medical capacity, if enough people were infected then a significant amount of antibiotics would initially be used attempting to treat them and a lot of resources would go to containing the spread, quarantining the infected or potential exposures and providing supportive care to a lot of people that would inevitably die very miserable deaths.