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  • Hey Vsauce, I'm Jake and in the incredible game The Last of Us 60% of the global population,

  • 4.25 billion people, more than the entirety of Asia, have suddenly ceased to exist or

  • are just no longer people. And scenarios like this are nothing new, there have been hundreds

  • and hundreds of movies and videogames that cover similar events, but could a pandemic

  • like what is depicted in The Last of Us...actually happen?

  • You only have to go back 95 years to 1918, at the end of World War 1, to witness one

  • of the most deadly and disastrous pandemics in human history: The Spanish Flu.

  • This variety of avian influenza killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people, more than

  • 3 times the amount who died in the actual war, and with a worldwide population at the

  • time of 1.85 billion, it wiped out 3-5% of the entire planet; and that was only in one

  • year.

  • But the flu is a virus that actually exists, and in the work of fiction The Last of Us

  • we are dealing with an organism, a fungus...that also...actually exists.

  • Cordyceps are fungal parasites that infect and take over insects. The most well known

  • being ophiocordyceps unilateralis that infects ants, turning them into zombies. A spore from

  • the fungus enters the ant's body, taking over its brain and controlling its movements. Not

  • too long after, the ant finds a perfect spot to die, the fruiting body of the fungus grows

  • out of the ant's head, and a slew of spores are released onto the unsuspecting ant population.

  • It has been known to decimate entire colonies, but luckily it only infects insects, and it's

  • not like diseases can move from one species to another...well....

  • An estimated 60% of all modern diseases came from animals, specifically ones that we live

  • in close contact with or have domesticated. From cattle grew measles, tuberculosis and

  • smallpox. From pigs and birds we have the flu. From chimpanzees we have AIDS. All of

  • these started out as infections that couldn't be spread to humans, but after years and years

  • of these microbes being around us, they adapted to our biology.

  • But we don't live in direct contact with ants, and most people don't eat ants, so that's

  • good...but other animals do, and then other animals eat those animals, and at some point

  • on this parasitic food chain lie humans. Considering how diseases mutated and progressed from domesticated

  • animals to us, it isn't too far fetched to think that a fungal infection like this, whose

  • only purpose is to survive long enough to spread, could adapt and evolve to lay claim

  • to the top of that food chain.

  • A great example of a microbe's ingenuity is in Jared Diamond's amazing book 'Guns, Germs

  • and Steel'. Jared talks about the bacterial disease typhus and how it was transmitted

  • to people by going from rat fleas to rats to humans. But after a while, typhus figured

  • out a much easier way to infect us: by cutting out the unnecessary carriers and going directly

  • from human body lice to humans.

  • If a fungal parasite like the Cordycep could infect humans like it does in The Last of

  • Us, how long would it take? One of the biggest differences between the Spanish Flu in 1918

  • and a modern day pandemic is how connected we are. What would have taken two weeks to

  • go from New York to Germany by boat, can be done in 8hrs on a plane. Using the Global

  • Epidemic and Mobility software and some parameters we know from the game, we can create a model

  • and simulate what the transmission and spread would look like.

  • In about 60 days, the fungal parasite would have infected the majority of the planet.

  • And you know things are bad when not even Madagascar is safe.

  • But that isn't to say that the governments of the world don't have plans in place. Most

  • governments - and the United States in particular - have strategies for biological threats,

  • counterterrorism, and the one that applies to this situation most, The National Strategy

  • for Pandemic Influenza. In it their high estimate for fatality domestically is 2 million, or

  • less than 1% the population of the US. This incredibly detailed 233 page document really

  • drives home one main point, and that is "sustain infrastructure and mitigate impact to the

  • economy and the functioning of society".

  • A virus or disease or parasite doesn't affect power lines, cars, the internet...it affects

  • the people who make those things work. When 60% of the entire population, over 4 billion

  • people, just stop being - when the doctors, the teachers, the mechanics, the mail men

  • vanish, and what we know as society crumbles...all that's left is...the last of us.

  • And as always, thanks for watching.

Hey Vsauce, I'm Jake and in the incredible game The Last of Us 60% of the global population,

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我們會是最後的我們嗎? (Could We Be The Last of Us?)

  • 144 6
    Jerry Lin 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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