I'm betting on airborne transmission at this point.
That's a given now. At first, I thought the malnutrition problem in China was more severe than I'd previously assumed given how fast this spread. Then that reminded me of the fact that the Han Chinese have regularly culled their own populations in response to domestic unrest in the past. Imagine what the CCP could do with modern bio-weapon capabilities and AI projections. They could cull problem segments of their population in advance of the crisis to preserve resources and infrastructure and given the contagion need not concern themselves of foreign intervention if foreign aliens are exposed.
That is a hell of a way to look at it. I hadn't considered all that.
Either way, it's clear that this is spreading fast and there's serious efforts to keep awareness tamped down. I wouldn't blame anyone at this point for breaking out their NBC gear, or putting in an order for the stuff if they currently lack it.
cc:
That's a possibility yes
They refused foreign help https://www.foxnews.com/health/us-health-officials-on-coronavirus-outbreak
"China spurned CDC offer to send team to help contain coronavirus: US Health Secretary"
It doesn't prove anything in particular, but they still did, for a reason or another
...
That being said, the problem I see with your scenario, is control
By definition there's no control over a bioweapon, unless you have the cure, but even then it's not a done deal
Best thing you can hope for is for the virus to mutate against its own interests, and then vanish
Look into the "japanese ainu people" and their genetic history. Their only living relatives according to dna testing are a few isolated island groups who are still black. They look like europeans, but are a second evolution of the lineage due to winter adaptation. This adaptation also occured in china, but they were purged over the course of china's long history of purging different people within their borders. China also did the same with a muslim city along their western border. Rounded up all males, sent them to re-education camps, which they never returned from, and the city is now covered in chineese signs and advertizements, and not a single muslim is to be seen. Only the pale pointed eye faces of chineese now walk the streets.
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