Emily Badger, who writes for the on-line daily version of The Atlantic, called The Atlantic Cities, has some startling insights about the next pandemic to hit worldwide. She notes that past European panedemics were spread by foot travel from city to city.
So she talked to Dick Brockmann, a theoretical physicist and professor of complex systems at Northwestern University. Brockmann has spent about a decade modelling this issue with his colleagues, and he thinks that twenty-first century pandemics will spread based on travellers through the world’s largest airports.
The article is available at:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/02/weve-been-looking-spread-global-pandemics-all-wrong/4782/
It has a fascinating map of the large air travel corridors that is worth meditating upon.
Comments by the Blog Author
I like maps. I’ve driven across the entire United States several times with no maps or crude ones. Once as a student Naval Flight Officer, I planned a half-hour flight over several checkpoints (practice bombing targets) and was within seconds of my plan for each flyover, ending the last checkpoint within six seconds of my original planned time (at 300 miles per hour and only 1,200 feet over rural lower Alabama!).
That was fun.
So I got hypnotized by the frequency-of-travel worldwide air map at the above link. Some things fell out of that review that I did. Here they are.
PLACES YOU DON’T WANT TO BE DURING A WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC
You don’t want to be in the lower 48 states of the USA except rural Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming where there are no commercial airports. You don’t want to be in any of Canada’s large cities. You don’t want to be anywhere in Europe. You don’t want to be where Europeans vacation, especially the Azores, the West Indies, Bermuda or the Seychelles. You don’t want to be in the big cities of India, Brazil, Mexico or South Africa. You don’t want to be along the Pacific Rim from Japan to South Korea down to Singapore. You don’t want to be in a city along the east coast of Australia or in Tasmania. You don’t want to be in Iceland.
PLACES YOU WANT TO BE DURING A WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC
The Alexander Archipeligo of Alaska in the villages without an airport (WAA).
Central or eastern Montana, North Dakota or Wyoming (WAA).
Canada north of its big cities and WAA.
Siberia WAA.
The Australian outback WAA.
The Australian islands that are in the Indian Ocean
The Sahara Desert
The Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic
So she talked to Dick Brockmann, a theoretical physicist and professor of complex systems at Northwestern University. Brockmann has spent about a decade modelling this issue with his colleagues, and he thinks that twenty-first century pandemics will spread based on travellers through the world’s largest airports.
The article is available at:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/02/weve-been-looking-spread-global-pandemics-all-wrong/4782/
It has a fascinating map of the large air travel corridors that is worth meditating upon.
Comments by the Blog Author
I like maps. I’ve driven across the entire United States several times with no maps or crude ones. Once as a student Naval Flight Officer, I planned a half-hour flight over several checkpoints (practice bombing targets) and was within seconds of my plan for each flyover, ending the last checkpoint within six seconds of my original planned time (at 300 miles per hour and only 1,200 feet over rural lower Alabama!).
That was fun.
So I got hypnotized by the frequency-of-travel worldwide air map at the above link. Some things fell out of that review that I did. Here they are.
PLACES YOU DON’T WANT TO BE DURING A WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC
You don’t want to be in the lower 48 states of the USA except rural Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming where there are no commercial airports. You don’t want to be in any of Canada’s large cities. You don’t want to be anywhere in Europe. You don’t want to be where Europeans vacation, especially the Azores, the West Indies, Bermuda or the Seychelles. You don’t want to be in the big cities of India, Brazil, Mexico or South Africa. You don’t want to be along the Pacific Rim from Japan to South Korea down to Singapore. You don’t want to be in a city along the east coast of Australia or in Tasmania. You don’t want to be in Iceland.
PLACES YOU WANT TO BE DURING A WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC
The Alexander Archipeligo of Alaska in the villages without an airport (WAA).
Central or eastern Montana, North Dakota or Wyoming (WAA).
Canada north of its big cities and WAA.
Siberia WAA.
The Australian outback WAA.
The Australian islands that are in the Indian Ocean
The Sahara Desert
The Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic
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