The Worst Viruses the World Has Ever Known (IRL & Virtual)

As the coronavirus sweeps the world, the best you and I can do is keep calm and carry on.  Avoid large crowds, resist the urge to stockpile emergency medical supplies and ensure you’ve got plenty of data and battery life to power-up Springbok Mobile Casino South Africa… and you are good to go.

Fighting infectious diseases in the 21st century has become somewhat of an anomaly.  On the one hand we have a sophisticated medical system capable of finding a cure.  On the other hand, we have social media pumping out a constant stream of false news - stuff like the virus is really a beer coronavirus caused by quaffing large quantities of the Mexican ale!

Self-Isolate with Springbok Mobile Casino South Africa 

Globalisation and the ease of travel has made it more difficult to contain the disease.  With service providers like Takealot.com, Mr Delivery, Netflix - and our very own online and mobile casino South Africa in the mix - it has, however, never been easier to self-isolate and survive, thrive and even have fun!

What is worth remembering in times of strife is that the world has been in this position before… not once but multiple times.  Every few decades or so a killer virus rears its head, leaving plenty of bodies in its wake.

Deadly Viruses Old and New

First there was the Black Death, followed by the Spanish flu and most recently the Swine flu Pandemic, all of which decimated large sections of the world population. 

Then there are new age viruses that don’t attack the human body but our network systems instead… and that of course only enhances the inherent value of a mobile casino South Africa!

Let’s take a look at the deadliest viruses in history - not only terms of body count but in terms of dollars and cents - and how they shape up against the current contagion doing the global rounds.

The Bubonic Plague 

The so-called Black Death or Pestilence was the big daddy of infectious disease.  It is believed to have originated in the Far East in around 1340 and followed the Silk Road into Europe and later Africa.

According to several estimates, the bubonic plague claimed up to 200 million lives.  The populations in large cities like Paris, Florence, London and Bern were literally halved in a matter of weeks.

In a second outbreak of the plague in the mid-19th century, around 10 million people died in India alone, with almost double that in China.

What is interesting is the bubonic plague has almost exactly the same symptoms as the coronavirus - and we are not talking about that darned beer virus here!  The one exception is swollen lymph nodes that can rupture in the worst cases of the disease.

The bubonic plague still exists today but is isolated to countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru and Madagascar.  Our country is plague-free, so settle in and enjoy ZAR gambling at the best mobile casino South Africa and wait for the current virus to fade away!

Cause: infected fleas

Mortality rate: 10 percent with treatment, up to 90 percent without treatment

Total deaths: more than 220 million

Symptoms: fever, headaches, vomiting, swollen lymph nodes

Spanish Flu

The first outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus occurred in 1918 and infected more than 500 million people world-wide.  The spread was quick and devastating and in the first year of the pandemic, the life expectancy rate in the USA plunged by 12 years!

The Spanish flu was a respiratory virus with exactly the same symptoms as the coronavirus.  It was particularly lethal for the very young and old but due to the conditions during World War I, it took a toll on usually able-bodied men and women too.

In way of comparison, the Spanish flu killed around 100 million people in 24 weeks, more than what the HIV/AIDs virus did in 24 years!

Cause: birds and pigs

Mortality rate: 2 to 3 percent

Total deaths: more than 100 million people

Symptoms: sneezing, coughing, fever, body aches, nausea, diarrhoea

Swine Flu 

The Swine flu pandemic was the second outbreak of the H1N1 virus.  It took the world by storm in 2009 and infected more than 1.4 billion people worldwide.

Unlike the Spanish flu, the more modern outbreak of the virus had a far lower mortality rate and claimed approximately 280,000 lives.  When left untreated, the flu-like symptoms evolved into full-blown pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Cause: pigs

Mortality rate: 0.01 to 0.03 percent

Total deaths: 280,000

Symptoms: fever, cough, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat, fatigue

Coronavirus (Covid-19)

The novel coronavirus is far from over… but in the two and bit months since it was first officially tracked after being detected in Wuhan, China, it has infected more than 110,00 people in 120 countries and territories.  It too is a respiratory virus with similar symptoms to flu.

In severe cases, pneumonia and difficulty breathing are complications of the virus that, to date, has killed more than 3,100 people.  Unlike the other deadly strains, coronavirus does not affect the young but the elderly are particularly at risk, displaying mortality rates of 8 percent and 14.8 percent for the over seventies and eighties, respectively.

Cause: animals yet to be determined

Mortality rate: +-3.5 percent

Deaths to date: 4000+

Symptoms: cough, difficulty breathing, fever

Now for a brief synopsis of two viruses that nearly brought the world economy to a grinding halt.  Neither had a mortality rate or total death count but they infected millions of PC’s, leaving gamblers with no alternative but to resort to a mobile casino South Africa!

ILoveYou 

In 2000 a computer virus posing as a TXT file infected more than 50 million Windows PCs.  When users clicked on an attachment purportedly containing a ‘love confession’, the virus automatically invaded the mailing list and started overwriting random files.

As it sent copies of itself to all the addresses on the respective mailing lists, the spread of the infection was alarmingly fast.  The end result?  Mailing systems around the world became dysfunctional, PC’s froze, and millions of files were destroyed in successive networks.

Cause: Intentionally designed

Total infection: 50 million PC’s

Cost: $23 billion 

Code Red 

In 2001 a computer worm called Code Red wreaked havoc on computers installed with the Microsoft IIS web server.  It exploited a weakness in the software and once in the system generated hundreds of copies that automatically replicated until all the system resources were destroyed.

This time the ‘body count’ was an estimated two million ISS servers, a third of all the ISS servers in the world at the time.  As the worm effectively jammed the works, it cost more than $2 billion in lost productivity, but it allowed Springbok fans to fire up the game engines of our mobile casino South Africa instead!

Cause: intentionally designed

Total infection: 2 million servers

Cost: $2 billion

Now that you know a little more about the killer viruses that have plagued the earth, it’s time to take the necessary precautions and pray like mad that the current lurgy, known as covid-19, is more Corona beer virus than Black Death!

Seriously folk, sanitise everything and keep a tight hold on your sanity by playing real money casino games at our 5-star rated mobile casino South Africa… that way the contagion simply cannot spread!