Question

Which of the following would most quickly devastate a human population?

A flu virus breaking out in a large office building or school

A deadly water-borne microorganism in a city's water source

A genetic disorder found in a population of average women

An illness that spreads through contact with bodily fluids

Answer 1

You mainly want to look at who is effected. So start by going through and looking at who would be first effected, and then how easily that infection would be spread, or how easy it would be to contain.

I'll start you off with an example for the last one, spread through contact of bodily fluids. Think of something like HIV. It can be contained if people don't come into contact with the infected fluids, so it will not spread past that one person except in rare circumstances where fluids mixed with one or both not knowing about the risk, or something like that. Very few people infected, very easily contained, difficult to spread.

Apply that similar thought process to the other answers, what do you think it would be?

Answer 2

B?

Answer 3

That's exactly what I was thinking. Because in the water it's getting to everyone who brushes their teeth or cooks, or drinks, or showers with, or you name it, with that water source. That's a lot of people. And if it's something that could be spread human to human as well as through the water it's really bad news.

Answer 4

This is an interesting one. A case could be made for a couple on the list and as @PsychoTink correctly discusses, a deadly waterborne pathogen in a city's water source would do a number on the population of that city.

I would go with the flu virus breaking out in a large office building or school - but I'd add the caveat that it be the H5N1 strain which was recently recreated in contagious form in the lab, and deemed so virulent that it sparked a huge, messy and ongoing debate about whether the benefits of publishing the procedure outweigh the risks. Also on the breaking news front, there is a growing belief that disease causing organisms can be carried long distances (i.e., across oceans) on the wind. Viruses, which are not technically alive, likely fare better in the troposphere than bacteria and so are more prone to being spread this way.

But if it were any normal flu virus, then I would agree with Tink: deadly microbes in the water are not to be trifled with.