By: William D. Slicker
There have been some diseases that are transmitted by respiratory droplets (coughing, sneezing, or breathing on others). These would include Coronavirus (Covid-19) and the common Flu (not the Spanish Flu). These diseases are easily spread but have had a low mortality rate. The percentage of people infected with Covid-19 who die is 1.4%.[1] The percentage of people infected with the common Flu who die is 0.0142%.[2]
There have also been some diseases that are transmitted by physical contract. These diseases are not easily spread, but have a high mortality rate. The diseases include Ebola, Marburg, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, and the Plague. The death rate for Ebola is 50-90%.[3] Marburg has a death rate of 20-90%.[4] There is no treatment for Marburg. Up to 50% of those with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever will die.[5] There is no cure for it. Bubonic Plague has an estimated mortality rate of 50% to 90% if not treated.[6] Pneumonic plague was a mortality rate of close to 100% if not treated. During the reign of Justinian starting about 541 AD the Bubonic Plague killed about one-third of the Europeans.[7] The second Bubonic Plague pandemic was the Black Death of 1346-1353 which killed 30-50% of Europe’s population.[8]
What happens when bio labs seek to enhance these diseases to make them more lethal and easier to transmit? There is the Marburg example. In 1967, lab workers in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany were infected with a previously unknown infection. It killed 7 of 31 of those infected.[9] In 1988, Nickolai Ustinov was working with the Marburg virus in a Soviet bio lab when he accidentally pricked himself in his thumb. He was isolated where he experienced a terrible death while his organs and brain broke down and he bled from every opening. After his death, samples of his organs were collected and analyzed. A new more powerful strain had evolved. It became known as the Marburg variant U. It was weaponized and approved by the Soviet Ministry of Defense in 1990.[10] Antibiotic resistant strains of Plague and Anthrax were also weaponized.[11] There is no cure and it is not science fiction.
In addition to modifying deadly pathogens so that they are more deadly and modifying those deadly pathogens to be airborne, the Soviets were also combining pathogens. A combination of pathogens is called a Chimera. They combined bacterial pathogens like the plague with viral pathogens such as the Venezuelan Equine Encephelitis. The effect is that if someone was able to get antibiotics in time to treat the plague, they would still die due to the viral pathogen which causes paralysis and death.[12] If this type of biological Chimera was released in the United States, there would be very few people that would survive if it was not immediately contained. It would be “the beginning of the end, the Apocalypse, the utter failure and ultimate demise of all things human.”[13] The few survivors would be select governmental officials hidden in bunkers, military personnel that had biohazard suits, crews on naval ships at sea, crews on submarines under the ocean, and the very wealthy that had private islands or large offshore yachts.
A global survey in 2025 identified 110 BSL-4 labs in 34 countries and 3,515 B52-3 labs in 149 countries.[14] A BSL-4 lab is a maximum-containment facility that houses planet Earth’s most dangerous and exotic pathogens for which there are no known treatments or vaccines. A BSL-3 lab is one step below a BSL-4 lab, a high containment facility built to handle other kinds of deadly pathogens, including rabies, hantaviruses, anthrax, and plague.[15]
In addition to these containment facilities, there are illegal facilities. The recent discovery of two illegal biolabs in the United States that were linked to China has exposed a failure of U.S. biosecurity. In 2022, Zhu Jai Bei maintained a secret biolab in California that included samples of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola, and Covid-19.[16] More recently, in January of 2026, another of Zhu Jai Bei’s biolabs was discovered in Las Vegas, Nevada. This one had samples of flu and vials of unknown liquids sent for analysis.[17]
“The release of a virulent pathogen, even if by accident, could initiate a pandemic globally, if containment procedures are not immediate and total. This is especially true if the pathogen has been genetically modified to evade cure.[18]
However, there is hope. There are technology and medical experts working on systems in which a person can breathe into their smart phone and their breath will be analyzed to see what type of pathogen they were infected with. There are also better surveillance systems being developed to detect pathogens early enough to isolate them and stop their spread.[19]
Maybe it is time to move to Iqaluit, Canada.
[1] Worldometer, “Coronavirus (Covid-19) Mortality Rate) Worldometer https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/
[2] “Influenza,” Center for Disease Control (June 13, 2026)
[3] “Ebola Disease Basics” Center for Disease Control (June 2, 2026)
[4] “About Marburg” Center for Disease Control” (September 24, 2025)
[5] “About Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever.” Center for Disease Control (July 1, 2025).
[6] Hicks, Joshua; Stephen, Tyler; and Juergens, Andrew L., “Plague (Yersinia pestis infection) National Library of Medicine (April 16, 2026)
[7] “Plague of Justinian” Brittanica, last accessed Aug. 14, 2026.
[8] “Black Death” Britannica (July 27, 2026).
[9] “Forty-Five Years of Marburg Virus Research” National Library of Medicine (Oct. 1, 2012).
[10] Alibek and Handelman, “Biohazard: The Chilling Trust Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World-Told from inside by the Man Who Ran It.” Random House (1999).
[11] Smithson, Amy, “Factors in illicit bioweapons programs: case studies of the Soviet Union/Russia and Iraq,” Frontiers in Political Science (Nov. 11, 2025).
[12] Jacobson, Annie, “Biological Warfare” Ibid (Page 322)
[13] T. Coraghessan Boyle, “After the Plague” Viking Penguin, 2001 a short story first published in Playboy.
[14] Jacobson, Annie, supra.
[15] Jacobson, Annie, supra.
[16] Howell, Sam, “Two Illegal Biolabs Reveal Gaps in U.S. Biosecurity” Cybersecurity & Tech (Mar. 18. 2026)
[17] Howell, Sam, ibid; Saha, Victoria, “FBI: Materials found in Las Vegas home bio lab consistent with medical test kit components.” Fox 5, KVVU TV (Mar. 6, 2026)
[18] Jacobson, supra
[19] Jacobson, supra (page 322)
