A new video game inspired by the Swine Flu pandemic has hit the internet! http://www.thegreatflu.com Where you, too, can play at controlling the flu pandemic of your choice, from spreading worldwide and causing unforseen death and devastation, like it is in real life. This game has been created by Dutch researchers to raise awareness and can only be played online, free. While the World Health Organization (WHO) denies intimate knowledge of the game, it does tell us that to date there have been 1,462 deaths and 178,000 cases of swine flu since April.
A new video game inspired by the Swine Flu pandemic has hit the internet! http://www.thegreatflu.com Where you, too, can play at controlling the flu pandemic of your choice, from spreading worldwide and causing unforeseen death and devastation, like it is in real life. This game has been created by Dutch researchers to raise awareness and can only be played online, free. While the World Health Organization (WHO) denies intimate knowledge of the game, it does tell us that to date there have been 1,462 deaths and 178,000 cases of swine flu since April.
I went to the website and played the game and let me tell you, it is a creepy feeling, however the game is well done. Really thorough, providing you with all of these different ways in which to warn and educate the populations about the virus, stockpile vaccines and anti-viral medicines and then afterwards, you can close down schools and markets and pass out face masks to try to contain it! Quite a challenge and quite morbid!
The intro to the game begins with current day photos of people wearing face masks because of Swine Flu, as well as old black and white photos of sick patients dying in bed from the 1918's devastating, Spanish Flu. Did you know the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 killed between 50-100 million people, primarily healthy young adults? It spread to nearly every part of the world and took out 1/3 of the entire world's population, targeting healthy young adults by turning their optimized immune systems against them. It was a particularly vicious strain of influenza and modern day researchers have taken extreme precautions in studying the remains of it's victims. Take some vitamin C before you even watch the intro because you get the chills just hitting the play button.
However, the idea is very clever and it certainly does raise awareness now, doesn't it?
Keep it clean!
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/
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