Russia's five-hospital quarantine, FSB involvement, and reported hazmat use in response to the death of a single researcher at a weapons-lineage Irkutsk lab are inconsistent with a lab-acquired plague infection, which would have been treated with prophylactic antibiotics.
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Russian authorities have surely sequenced the Irkutsk pathogen, but refuse to identify it.
Physical lockdown indicates it cannot be controlled with prophylactic antibiotics, implying engineered pan-resistance or that it isn't plague at all.
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None of this means the Irkutsk pathogen will cause a pandemic.
But the response clearly indicates that Russia believes an epidemic is possible – and that the responsible agent is likely a pandemic weapon or otherwise embarrassing for the government.
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Vaccines will be ineffective against competently designed pandemic weapons. Russia may not be competent yet, but future AI will democratize competence.
We should stockpile pandemic-proof PPE and install germicidal far-UV and glycol misters in public spaces.
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Kevin Esvelt
@kesvelt
Some scientists argue civilization-threatening bioweapons are a fantasy. I wish they were correct, and that I've wasted years building defenses.
That you can't see a way, or evidence that others can, doesn't mean no one could – especially if anyone cautious would stay silent. x.com/SGRodriques/st…
Turn one product photo into studio-quality ads. Describe the shot, pick the angles, and Runway Agent generates the full set in minutes. No studio, no reshoot.
The media could not be played.
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Outbreak Updates
@outbreakupdates
Important addition:
The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute’s own research summary appears to describe deliberate virulence enhancement by serial passage.
In its Brucella program, the institute says repeated passage through guinea pigs was used to increase bacterial virulence.
The other solution is information security. If Russia was developing something they shouldn’t have, they wouldn’t want samples acquired by foreign governments.
Might be national security not pandemic fears.
And we are supposed to believe what Russia tells us? They were tight-lipped about Chernobyl until it was far too late.
if the US had a lab accident at the CDC, and someone died, I’m pretty sure the FBI would be involved.
The five-hospital scale is the odd part. Post-exposure prophylaxis for plague is doxycycline or ciprofloxacin, and a lab would have those on hand. Five facilities plus FSB points to something they either couldn't confirm was plague or couldn't treat with standard antibi
“The response clearly indicates” -you’re making a superficial assumption based on the response alone, with limited information. What if their response is competent and they simply treat all potential lab leak incidents with the highest level of criticality, unlike wuhan. I agree
Yeah antibiotics would 100% work on a Soviet bio lab weapon designed to resist antibiotics 😂
Please replace "plague infection" by "drug-susceptible plague infection."
The response does not match ordinary plague. Antibiotics would have been the quiet story. A withheld name, a lockdown, FSB and hazmat after one death: that pattern is the object. It is not a pandemic. You said so.
What a stranger can check is the agent, the sequence, the
Its quite simple, because its a government facility, they have to have a strong response otherwise they look like they dont care, plus the potential for lethal, possibly engineered/enhanced strains, which the government may not be sure about. Either way, it has to go hard at it
Pneumonic plague progresses rapidly. Yes, it is curable with antibiotics, but the treatment window is short.
“Physical lockdown indicates it cannot be controlled with prophylactic antibiotics.”
That is not how plague control works. CDC and WHO guidance explicitly recommends both physical isolation/quarantine measures and antibiotic prophylaxis when pneumonic plague is suspected.
Any civilians have Havana syndrome symptoms?The plague spreading in Russia Maybe they shot the reasearcher with directed energy and made her drop it ???? Its possible ! Russia is probably under attack !.
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Am I the only one thinking "so if this turns into a global pandemic that wipes out 90% of the human population, would it really be so bad? I mean dont we need a do-over at this point?"
whats your take on this, do you we will be having a pandemic next year
Actually, annihiliating Russia NOW with the disinfectant of nuclear fire, seems a sane and sensible policy at this point.
If this reaches the US we are cooked. Completely incompetent leadership.
"If a patient were diagnosed with pneumonic plague in time to be treated, the antibiotics would attack and lyse the plague cells, thereby releasing the plasmid coding for myelin toxin"
montana.edu/historybug/yer