NatGeo once got into the infected zombie game, HERE. An expert talks about rabies going airborne.
There is no need for an airborne version of a lyssavirus, though this concept is obviously popular. An airborne with aggression and violence as symptoms would burn so fast that it would extinguish quickly. If you can survive the outbreak, such as in an isolated bunker, you’d come out in a few months to a changing world and start your farming. A totally different storyline. One that would include the US government surviving in Mount Weather and Raven Rock. The order would be to lock down and wait it out. There would be no apocalypse if this means a mass extinction. Only a change, as viruses burning fast through populations, have caused numerous times, including the Bubonic Plague.
A premise that has very little to work with for a novelist. Stephen King had to get religious and supernatural for the rest of The Stand. Otherwise, you’d just farm and go old school. Once in a while, some bad guys come along. If the story is a drama, that’s great. In any other genre, it is boring.
The most dangerous virus would be that which burns fast (ala Black Plague) as well as carried for long periods, infecting others without even knowing they have it (ala HIV). It promises to become endemic then. There is no waiting it out. The US government, among other governments, would go to extreme measures to stop its spread. (Psst, hinted at in Book Five Mazy scenes – spoiler alert: the extinction-level event is coming!)
If you want to geek out hard, here is a medical microbiology journal article.
There would no choice but to throw everything at such a virus. Additionally spread by animals and the Mokola kicker of mosquitos, oh shit. The entire arsenal will be thrown at it, which means tens of millions of people killed and whole ecosystems collapsing.
Due to that fast burn and slow carrying and all the vectors, there is no way to wait out R140. Anyone could be carrying it, and for a year or even longer. No promise that body stressors would bring it out on everyone. Virology teaches for every rule there are exceptions. The major characters may be carrying R140. They have been in close contact with the infected repeatedly and several of them have eaten the meat of infected animals.
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