the plague the plague

 Legal Insurrection notes that the experts are planning to make a new plague vaccine.

there has been a vaccine for over a century, but it's not very good, and requires several doses. It was given to the US military recruits who were deployed to high risk areas in the past... 

But it doesn't protect everyone, and alas now there are reports of antibiotic resistance.

I posted a lot of stuff about this on my medical blog.

given the fact that it is present in some rodants on the west coast of the USA, and given the garbage and rat infestations due to the homeless encampments (where already there have been cases of typhus and a Hep A epidemic), there is a bit of a worry. 

Docs in the IHS in the Navajo area would see a few cases a year, and usually if treated with antibiotics would cure it. But in a city, the average doc might not recognize it.

But when is the pneumonic form ( pneumonia), it can kill you within a day and is very infectious. In the past both Russia and the US investigated it as biowarfare agent. 

And of course the conspiracy types (and Russia) point to the biological labs in the Ukraine as a danger, even though most of these labs are about identifying and making vaccines for humans and animals. 

But the USA/EU/Russia/China are not the only ones who have these labs... Iran has one, and of course so does Israel

not only could these labs have a lab leak that could cause an epidemic (Brucellosis release in Chinese lab making a vaccine for example) but if a sociopathic leader got hold of it, it could cause problems.

Key scary scenerio:

Models developed by this expert committee predicted that the intentional release of 50 kg of aerosolized Y. pestis over a city of 5 million would, in its primary effects, cause 150,000 cases of pneumonic plague and 36,000 deaths.

 Tom Clancy call your office. We have a new plot for you.