Posted 08.19.2009 at 5:12 pm
8 Comments
The Great Flu
A game called The Great Flu, developed by virologists at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, lets you unleash the flu virus of your choice on the world, then use your $2 billion budget to contain it through a palette of public health moves.
Playing it, I've certainly gained a little knowledge about the flu and a lot of empathy for the WHO.
My first time playing was a massive failure. After selecting the Kai virus, I managed to kill about 40,000 people in a mere thirty days as the virus spread despite all my panicked efforts to contain it. By the time I started stockpiling vaccines, it was too late. I caused riots by shutting down the airports without deploying an information campaign to tell the people what was going on. Despite closing schools, markets, and airports, and distributing facemasks, I soon burned through my money and had no choice but to watch the havoc.
The second time around, I took a more successful route, and despite causing global economic turmoil and riots in southeast Asia, I was able to get a strain-specific vaccine in time to contain the virus. Body count: 24,501. Yeesh. Can you guys do any better? What public health moves were the most useful to you?
[via Associated Press]
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the game pandemic two is the opposite you gotta outmanuever governments and keep infectin ppl till everyones wiped out. its pretty hard but real fun
I tried the golden flu.
in the end about 10000 people died.
The face masks, isolating victims, informing citizens, and antiviral meds were the best.
Then I tried the jabalia virus and ended up with 2000000 dead.
Ok I tried the kai virus again
I got 26348 infected, and only 399 deaths.
I tried the jabalia virus and this time only got 130000 infected, and 322 dead.
ok last time
kai virus
1158 infected
29 dead
wat now.
Broadway virus
37,450,948 infected
52,818 dead
:P beat that.....
You can't lose. You can cause more deaths, but even if you do nothing at all for the nastiest virus available less than 5% of the population dies and less than 50% are infected. Real outbreaks have hit much harder. Still I like the Mad Max approach: buff and isolate Australia and let the rest of the world burn. Mad Max will keep everyone safe... as long as they're Aussies and don't drive dune buggies.
Even though "games" like these may increase your knowledge on certain diseases and the empathy towards some organizations, they still worry me. Sorry, but I read threads like this with serious concern for the banalization of death and suffering.
I understand not everybody reacts the same way, but there are indeed more youngsters everyday who are both over-informed and who have access to more resources than ever in history, and still I see them as increasingly detached from the true experience of life.
Again, I'm not trying to disrespect or put anybody down here. Just and observation.
John Rye
www.squidoo.com/BUY-CHEAP-AMAZON-KINDLE-2