My virus is called ratwateritus and it infects rats. This was very successful in the past with the black plague, so who’s to say it couldn’t happen again. I chose this animal not only because of its past success, but they are also still an extremely successful species in our modern society. When you consider the places in the World people are most densely populated, New York, London, Paris, you almost always also find rats as well. I would also make it a water borne disease because of the behavior of rats in these major cities seeking refuge in sewers and several other waterways. It would be an RNA virus so that the host cell transcribes and replicates the infected proteins, making it extremely hard to cure. It would live with its host for years at a time and have very few symptoms so that it can be transmitted by people who aren’t aware they have it. It being a waterborne disease would make this spread rapidly. Another reason way I would ensure that the disease infected as many people as possible is that when the disease killed someone they would cough and vomit. I came up with this idea from a movie, in the film the most intense stages of this disease occur right when the host is dying. When the host dies, they temporarily become a super spreader. This would allow the virus to be far more successful because even after a year of contraction people would be spreading it rapidly. The only way to stop the virus would be by finding alternate water sources or filtering the water very intensely before consumption.
This sounds like a scary virus to catch! I really enjoyed reading about ratwateritus. I like how you choose rats. I did not even think about how they are always in extremely dense cities which helps the virus knock out a lot of people and spread easier. I know you mentioned that when the people who caught the disease would cough and vomit. Are there any other symptoms that set in first or are those the only two? Also, how long does it take from being infected to the disease to showing symptoms/dying? And what is the fatality rate of this virus? I am going to watch out for the water I am drinking whenever I travel, especially to densely populated cities!!
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It's very smart to have rats as reservoir hosts. there are many different species that inhabit every continent except Antarctica. Like you mentioned they are very successful, they multiply rapidly, have many offspring per lifetime, a sexualy mature female and male pair can have up to 2,000 offspring in one year. They are also mammals like us so they wouldn't have to mutate much to be able to spillover. I also think it's smart to have it live in the host for several years. and making it waterborne allows for a lot of spreading, because we all need water and cities typically consume water from only one source, meaning if that source is full of infected rats, the entire city would be infected in days.
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I literally hate rats with a passion, so reading this really made me cringe and gave me chills down my spine. So the disease that the rats have, is it one type of rat that has the virus or is it all rats in general? Along with rats being in a densely populated area, there are also a lot of field rats in the country. Would these field rats also effect how the virus is spread? Lastly, if the water is already being filtered and people are still getting this virus, how would one go about drinking water to avoid getting the disease? Overall this virus is pretty scary due to our past experiences with fats and diseases.
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Hey Luke! I think rats were a really good choice for this disease. They reproduce quickly and some species of them lives in just about every part of the world. It would very difficult not to contract a virus that was spread through them. I think the water-borne idea is very interesting. I feel like it would not be the first place people look and therefore it would take longer to stop the spread of the disease. It would be difficult to control, and it would spread through populations very rapidly. I also think its really smart that you said people could live with the disease for years. This would allow them to spread the disease even further.
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