01-07-2022, 02:20 AM
I came across this CBC article today from January 2020: "A virtual plague that decimated World of Warcraft could hold lessons for real-world outbreaks, researchers say"
It was definitely interesting to read something from the "Before times".
Quote:In the late summer of 2005, a mysterious plague affected an estimated four million people, but caused no deaths — at least not in the real world.
When an update to the multiplayer online game World of Warcraft introduced an in-game condition called Corrupted Blood that acted as a viral disease, players around the world faced a virtual pandemic as their characters unwittingly infected others and rapidly perished.
Today, some epidemiologists believe it can offer insight into the spread of viral infections, including a new coronavirus that has killed 41 people in China as of Friday evening.
"What we saw is some remarkably not-real-world behaviours, but things that are analogous to real-world behaviours," said epidemiologist Eric Lofgren, who was an active Warcraft player when the disease broke out.
It was definitely interesting to read something from the "Before times".