[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 05 October 2026 - 04:51 PM, said:

Why are you making a bunch of assumptions?

Even in Putin's Russia it seems extremely implausible that a lab technician knowingly working on plague who breaks a vial containing plague and then develops plague symptoms would not realize that they might have the plague. Now we could ask which of those assumptions might be false: could they have not known what was in the vial, even after cleaning it up and reporting it? No one bothered to tell them, even though it's contagious and easily treatable with inexpensive antibiotics?

Given that we know Putin has been developing bioweapons, it seems more likely that something about this strain prevented them from quickly curing it with antibiotics after the onset of symptoms.

That doesn't mean it will necessarily cause a pandemic, or even an epidemic inside Russia. If it does become epidemic inside Russia, hopefully the robot armies of China and Ukraine will be sufficient to enforce a quarantine.

If Russia ends up being decimated by an escaped bioweapon, it could be a fitting end to the war... with Ukrainian robots (they're now prototyping humanoid military robots incidentally) marching in to a devastated and (even more) depopulated Russia.

Quote

Just ask your AI godking to help you.

Unfortunately my AI god-emperor is still in the future, so I'll have to go into a receptive trance to process its FTL transmissions... oh no QT It's telling me you have the plague but you're refusing to go to hospital because I said you should... please don't end up like that lab technician!

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: Yesterday, 07:15 PM

[Cause]

Pneumonic plague should be BSL-3 I believe, which means it needs either a Biosafety cabinet of level 2 minimum and ideally level 3. Level 2 should prevent aerosols escaping and level 3 is a sealed box. Either way dropping a ‘test tube’ should have been a mitigated risk in the former and a non event in the latter. Protocol would have been to disinfect everything. She would have I’d imagine be given prophylactic antibiotics and told to isolate for the incubation period which should be around 1-7 days. Bsl3 labs and above have paperwork and protocols like you wouldn’t believe. I believe she wouldn’t have been able to work alone either so no hiding the accident either. pope would’ve been a gown, double gloves, taped to the sleeve, respiratory protection, eye/face shield

The timeline of September 29 to October 3rd is very fast but maybe plausible in a worst case scenario. The level of care would have needed to be frightfully lax though! Protocol would have been for someone to check on her every day to keep on eye on symptoms and to make sure she is maintaining isolation.

Human error is always the week link but really so much would need to have gone wrong here for her to not only die of the plague but to have started an outbreak even more protocols and human error would be needed.

The cure is streptomycin for gods sake.

[Mentalist]

Cause, on 05 October 2026 - 07:29 PM, said:

Pneumonic plague should be BSL-3 I believe, which means it needs either a Biosafety cabinet of level 2 minimum and ideally level 3. Level 2 should prevent aerosols escaping and level 3 is a sealed box. Either way dropping a ‘test tube’ should have been a mitigated risk in the former and a non event in the latter. Protocol would have been to disinfect everything. She would have I’d imagine be given prophylactic antibiotics and told to isolate for the incubation period which should be around 1-7 days. Bsl3 labs and above have paperwork and protocols like you wouldn’t believe. I believe she wouldn’t have been able to work alone either so no hiding the accident either. pope would’ve been a gown, double gloves, taped to the sleeve, respiratory protection, eye/face shield

The timeline of September 29 to October 3rd is very fast but maybe plausible in a worst case scenario. The level of care would have needed to be frightfully lax though! Protocol would have been for someone to check on her every day to keep on eye on symptoms and to make sure she is maintaining isolation.

Human error is always the week link but really so much would need to have gone wrong here for her to not only die of the plague but to have started an outbreak even more protocols and human error would be needed.

The cure is streptomycin for gods sake.

Initial reporting was that they put 200 people under observation that could've potentially been exposed, including several hospitals.

So definitely something odd about the distribution pattern.

[Tsundoku]

Reminds me of all the information that promptly came out of China back in the day. Oh wait!

Now we just wait and see if Russia shuts down domestic flights but allows international flights to continue ...

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: Yesterday, 08:34 PM

[Mentalist]

Tsundoku, on 05 October 2026 - 08:34 PM, said:

Reminds me of all the information that promptly came out of China back in the day. Oh wait!

Now we just wait and see if Russia shuts down domestic flights but allows international flights to continue ...

Good thing there's sanctions in place that block them from flying to the West.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes the plague, has a long history as a potential biological weapon, adding to scrutiny around the incident.

The Soviet Union developed antibiotic-resistant Yersinia pestis for biological warfare, per a CDC report from 2021.

https://www.axios.co...outbreak-lab-us

Antibiotic resistance so strong that even knowing what she was likely infected with they weren't able to save her?

Granted, the CDC report does not mention greater infectiousness. But that she got it at all despite controlled laboratory conditions may imply that.

The Soviet program also managed

Quote

transfer of a gene for myelin toxin to Yersinia pestis (plague bacteria), however this agent was reportedly not yet weaponized. [...]

[...] genetic engineering research was underway to create entirely new life forms.The goal of hybrid ―chimera‖ viruses was to insert genes from one virus into another to create an even more lethal virus. [...] Genetically engineered pathogens would likely prove to be a more difficult challenge than the 2001 anthrax attacks. Most likely they would be novel in characteristics with either higher transmissivity, communicability, or antibiotic resistance. Such ―tailoring‖ of classical pathogens could make them harder to detect, diagnose, and treat.

https://media.defens...NBIOWEAPONS.PDF

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: Today, 01:19 AM

[Tsundoku]

Mentalist, on 05 October 2026 - 10:46 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 05 October 2026 - 08:34 PM, said:

Reminds me of all the information that promptly came out of China back in the day. Oh wait!

Now we just wait and see if Russia shuts down domestic flights but allows international flights to continue ...

Good thing there's sanctions in place that block them from flying to the West.

Ah yes, of course. Because a stopover in somewhere like Kazakhstan also stops viruses. Handy that.
Although wasn't someone saying upthread the fast incubation and lethality may be the only thing that slows the spread?
Fast enough that someone infected that morning can't make it to some transport hub like Dubai, or even beyond by that evening?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Tsundoku, on 06 October 2026 - 08:09 AM, said:

Ah yes, of course. Because a stopover in somewhere like Kazakhstan also stops viruses. Handy that.
Although wasn't someone saying upthread the fast incubation and lethality may be the only thing that slows the spread?
Fast enough that someone infected that morning can't make it to some transport hub like Dubai, or even beyond by that evening?

No, the usual incubation period for ordinary pneumonic plague is 1-3 days.

Clinical Testing and Diagnosis for Plague | Plague | CDC

Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries have tightened border controls and instituted health checks in response:

Quote

Kazakhstan tightens border checks over possible plague case in Russia

Kazakhstan's Health Ministry said it is closely monitoring the epidemiological situation [...] and taking additional measures at the border. These measures include quarantine controls at border checkpoints.

The country's health authorities urged citizens to immediately seek medical attention if they develop symptoms after traveling and to provide healthcare workers with the exact location and dates of their travel. The ministry also advised the public to rely only on official sources for information.

https://georgiatoday...case-in-russia/

Russia pneumonic plague fears: Three Central Asian nations tighten borders

But no mention of Mongolia doing the same, even though it borders Siberia. Granted, it is a long border. (I confess the romantic image came into my head of the Mongolian people riding to save the world from a possible pandemic. Perhaps with their falcons (bearing cameras on them?). And drones.)

Quote

experts say there's a possibility that it was a genetically altered version that behaves differently than the treatable strain. [...] U.S. preparedness efforts will focus first on getting as much detailed information as possible because officials first need to understand what is going on to prepare for it, said Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

"It's really critical to get the diagnosis right. There are conflicting stories around it," Inglesby said, noting that while there are substantial supplies of antibiotics in government stockpiles and pharmacies, there's still the possibility the strain is resistant to them.

[...] "Pneumonic plague does not normally cause large outbreaks in modern times, it happens rarely but it's very uncommon," Inglesby said. "If many people in that city do get sick, that would call into question the diagnosis, or raise concerns about something else going on."

"Getting the real story, the true facts of the situation out in the open is critical to everything else that follows in the response," [...]

Asked whether he's concerned, President Trump yesterday said: "Somehow those microbes have gotten stronger and smarter. They're like an army [...] things that used to work on pneumonia don't work as well anymore."

[...] A 2024 StateDepartment assessment concluded Russia maintains an offensive bioweapons program and absorbed the old Soviet program and evolved it. [...] The institute where she worked was established as part of an anti-plague network [...] it developed vaccines and diagnostics for pathogens that were modified by the military

https://www.axios.co...1722de8edf.html

Apparently well-fitting N95 masks and P100 masks are effective at stopping transmission. If it does become a pandemic, it's usually fatal, and it's a weaponized strain with no effective treatment, I wonder whether MAGA will continue to refuse to wear masks...

[Mentalist]

 Tsundoku, on 06 October 2026 - 08:09 AM, said:

 Mentalist, on 05 October 2026 - 10:46 PM, said:

 Tsundoku, on 05 October 2026 - 08:34 PM, said:

Reminds me of all the information that promptly came out of China back in the day. Oh wait!

Now we just wait and see if Russia shuts down domestic flights but allows international flights to continue ...

Good thing there's sanctions in place that block them from flying to the West.

Ah yes, of course. Because a stopover in somewhere like Kazakhstan also stops viruses. Handy that.
Although wasn't someone saying upthread the fast incubation and lethality may be the only thing that slows the spread?
Fast enough that someone infected that morning can't make it to some transport hub like Dubai, or even beyond by that evening?

Plague is a bacteria. Typically transmitted from rodents to people by fleas.

Which is why we haven't been seeing a lot of outbreaks in the past few centuries. Humans aren't actually very good at spreading it around.

(edit: the above is true for the "classic", bubonic plague. Lung plague spreads the old fashioned "sick person coughed on me" way, but you need close proximity, and it's most contagious when the person is already close to death. Still, given how deadly it is if not treated, people generally don't live long enough to do a lot of infecting) /edit

All in all, I am more bemused than actually alarmed about the situation, tbh. If it manages to do some significant impact (such as somehow ending up on the frontlines, where you might actually have good conditions for it), then good. But the likelihood of it actually causing a serious disruption is miniscule.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: Today, 06:56 PM