Major Disease References?

[kalos72]

So my team was going through and talking about some ideas for the islands of the Caribbean and we were wondering, like in Grenada where the flu took 30% of their population, what if something like the plague hit some of these lone islands

I imagine if say Haiti got hit with it, it could wipe out the population since they are not exactly "advanced" medically speaking...

Thoughts

[Legbreaker]

The best person to comment is probably a virologist I'd think...

However, given Grenada has the medical students to help, any incidents elsewhere is likely to have a higher death rate if you use Grenada stats as a base.
May also see people spreading the disease further as they attempt to either escape infection too late, or seek aid.
The island the infection started on could well be virtually depopulated (depending on it's size) by those dying or fleeing, and as word spread visitors (for trade or whatever) would stop cold. The island could well be perfectly safe after the virus burnt itself out, but fear would keep it vacant (but potentially well stocked with supplies and equipment for those brave enough to risk it).

[Targan]

The plague is actually easier to deal with than a bad strain of the flu, I suspect. If you can manufacture even fairly basic antibiotics you can treat the plague (it's bacterial, Yersinia Pestis). Influenza is a virus and anti-viral drugs are more difficult to synthesis and are often less effective.

[kalos72]

I think other have used a base 60% mortality rate, adding another 25% if the area has been involved in any sort of major war.

So for example, Haiti and the Dominican Republic are NOT friendly, so I can see there being open warfare there should a virus or something start to take hold and people flee.

60% base, 25% war and what another 10-15% for the virus

[unkated]

The plague is actually easier to deal with than a bad strain of the flu, I suspect. If you can manufacture even fairly basic antibiotics you can treat the plague (it's bacterial, Yersinia Pestis). Influenza is a virus and anti-viral drugs are more difficult to synthesis and are often less effective.

Ooops, you just said the magic word: manufacture.

Most of the Caribbean islands have very little manufacturing capability, although for game purposes I'd suppose you claim to have re-rigged something on a larger island (Jamaica's Red Stripe beer brewery, for example, though you may need troops to hold the place against a crowd instent on returning it to beer production!)

Actually, I think almost all of the smaller islands depend on food imports, and will experience die off to some degree. In some places, this may well bring a variety of illness due to inadequate means of handling lots of dead in a chaotic period, as well as individuals with weakened esistence due to malnourishment.

In some cases (in my nascent Caribbean Sourcebook), I had food delivered to hte French Islands from France, and some given out as humanitarian aid. There could be some repatriation (voluntary or otherwise) with folks being delivered to South America (surviving Dutch unloaded at Suriname, CW islanders being dropped off in Belize or Guayana, at night on an empty dock or beach at gunpoint: "We are saving you from starvation on the islands; France cannot feed you all forever. This (former) colony of yours will find you a place where you can grow your own food for the duration."

Uncle Ted

[Targan]

Ooops, you just said the magic word: manufacture.

We're not talking about a factory, more like a lab. It's WWI-level technology. Sure, if things have crashed so bad that you can't achieve a clean room in a 1920s tech level lab, even the plague is going to be hard to stop. Then again if things have crashed that badly, it's likely that your population has also crashed. If people aren't living in crowded conditions combined with poor sanitation and rampant rat infestations, the plague won't sweep through and be anywhere near as devastating as it was in Europe in the late Middle Ages.

[Olefin]

Remember guys disease has been used as a weapon for a very long time (recorded in history as far back as Alexander the Great) - heck look at the damage that was done to the American Indian with smallpox

While you might need a lab to grow some exotic disease it wouldn't take much to have infected blankets or medical supplies used by one group to spread a naturally occurring disease among a weakened population

by the way I don't see the French as being that powerful in the Caribbean Islands - if they were I highly doubt New America would have wasted the resources they have on a pirate fleet that a single French corvette could lay to waste