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A comment on Substantial undocumented infection facilitates rapid dissemination of SARS-CoV2. Parent comment

Re:Substantial undocumented infection facilitates rapid diss... by sndean on Saturday March 21, 2020 @02:59PM (#22648977)
It may just be my better understanding of bacteria, but I think it'd be significantly easier to engineer bacteria as a bioweapon where, largely, you are the one doing the spreading, via something like a crop duster.

I've heard a firsthand account from a guy who worked at Vector [0], that they had difficulty controlling viruses [1]. Accidental releases of weaponized bacteria also happened [2], but in that case they could prophylactically treat with antibiotics. That said, this was done using 1970's-1980's technology. I'm sure there's some more sophisticate bioweapons that are possible now. Maybe viruses are a more reasonable chassis.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_prog...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_smallpox_incident

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

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Re:Substantial undocumented infection facilitates rapid diss... by rolph on Saturday March 21, 2020 @09:09PM (#22651742)
bacteria are able to survive outside a host body, and exploit a wide range of resource compared to virus.

virus is good for control in the case of accidents such as a biowar implement crashes somehow and spills virus, the environment will destroy it quickly, the cleanup is simple compared to a bacterial agent, eg anthrax in spore form lasts many years-->

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