Disease kills over half the world's population, what happens next?

[TCO]

Maybe all our poor people will die!

[GePap]

If the disease targets the elderly and very young, as is usually the case, I think the Chinese would come out better than most. After all, the biggest fears of the government is not having enough jobs. And currently China is facing the prospect of an aging population. Heck, in one swift event they lose 700 Million, and still have 700 million adults and children - no more problems with lack of factory jobs, or taking care of the elderly.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I don't think the Renaissance is a mystery. The real mystery is why Europe sucked for so long.

Why do you say it sucked?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Sorry Floyd. but given the crappy state of the US health care system, you will have to reconcuile yourself to a European social model after the US suffers just as badly as China.

Our health care system would be perfectly capable of mobilizing to control an epidemic like that, like any other Western country. Problems with American healthcare have nothing to do with lack of trained doctors or lack of adequate facilities.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker




Our health care system would be perfectly capable of mobilizing to control an epidemic like that, like any other Western country. Problems with American healthcare have nothing to do with lack of trained doctors or lack of adequate facilities.

Right. Just look at the bang up job we do handling emergencies like Katrina. Or look at our stellar efforts against drug resistant TB.

Oh, whoops.....

The sad truth is that an epidemic of that magnitidue is something no state, no matter how wealthy, will be able to effective handle.

[Kuciwalker]

Right. Just look at the bang up job we do handling emergencies like Katrina.

Of course that had to do with our healthcare system, not FEMA

Or look at our stellar efforts against drug resistant TB.

Other Western countries have done signficantly better?

[David Floyd]

Actually, US healthcare is first-rate, especially when it comes to specialized medicine. We are extremely well equipped to handle epidemics.

There is no doubt that we will not be able to completely suppress and control an epidemic. But neither will anyone else. It's just that we - as will most other Western countries - will do a far better job than most countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

[GePap]

Any epidemic that had the ability to kill say 10% of the population (lets assume it has a 33% mortality rate, so we are talking about 30% of the population getting sick) would completely owerwhelm the medical resources of any country. No state except has sufficient facilities and personnel to deal with 1/3 of its population being sick at any one point.

Also, the issue in the US is coordination given our non-centralized health care system. CDC does a fine job gathering data, but when it came down to it, forcing resources to go to where they were needed and preventing hording and such would be done better by countries that already have state run health care system with one larger burocracy directly under government control.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Of course that had to do with our healthcare system, not FEMA

You speak as if our health care system were monolithic and centrally run. It isn't. That is why for example we have such higher administrative costs in the US than say France or Japan.

Other Western countries have done signficantly better?

on this issue, no. Which is why thinking that our system would be able to even handle, let alon handle well, a crisis of the magnitude envisioned in this thread is absurd.

[Kuciwalker]

You speak as if our health care system were monolithic and centrally run. It isn't.

Irrelevant in this kind of scenario - it would become 'centrally run' pretty damn quick.

on this issue, no. Which is why thinking that our system would be able to even handle, let alon handle well, a crisis of the magnitude envisioned in this thread is absurd.

No one said that. DF claimed that it would be better at handling this sort of epidemic than a 3rd-world country.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Other Western countries have done signficantly better?

I haven't actually seen any figures, but before entering the US I had to get a TB test. When I commented on the fact that I thought TB was almost unheard of nowadays the doctor mentioned that there was an unusually large number of cases in big American cities.

[Krill]

Kuci, stop feeding the troll, y'idiot.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


Why do you say it sucked?

Because compared to China and the Middle East it was a black hole.

[Krill]

Indeed it was, yet it still gave birth to the renaissance whereas China became a black hole in the European middle ages, and the middle east is currently a black hole. The only two continetns that haven;t had a black hole era so far have been North America because no one wanted to live there until the 16 hundreds because no civilizations lived and Antartica because we don't consider penguins as decent cohabitants.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't deny that, Krill. There are renaissances and dark ages everywhere.

The European middle ages are slightly notable for the depth and length of suckiness. I don't think its renaissance is particularly remarkable except for the fact that at some point ~1600 or so Europe crossed a line nobody ever had before and entered a new era of progress. The confluence of a decimal number system and algebraic expressions (imported from abroad) along with the scientific method (previously applied in other areas of the world) led to the invention of logarithms, the cartesian coordinate system and infinitesimal calculus and the birth of modern chemistry. From that point on it was almost inevitable, in my view. Further advances were easier and their returns were more obvious.