[Bon mots]

It seems particularly deadly for Han Chinese, who make up the majority of the population of Taiwan.

Plenty of these things escape from labs.

• Hansens Disease (Leprosy) now infects armadillos - which can pass it to humans, after they were deliberately infected in a lab for study, and from which they later escaped.
• Killer bees escaped from a lab
• In Russia, a woman caught smallpox in the lab where it was held in a safe on some other floor, far away
• Reston Virus escaped from a lab in the USA in Reston, Virginia - thankfully while it was deadly for monkeys, it is harmless to humans.
• 1977 H1N1 flu (Thanks China!) - Due to lab mishandling, a strain of the H1N1 influenza managed to escaped from a Chinese facility that was likely trying to create a vaccine for the disease. The virus spread globally and had an infection rate of 20% to 70% among those exposed. Luckily, the strain of the virus caused only mild disease and few fatalities.
• Smallpox in the UK: From 1963 to 1978, there were three smallpox escapes from two different laboratories. All three were due to poor standards and bad practices within the labs. Three cases and at least 80 deaths were linked to the outbreaks.
• 1995 Equine Encephalitis - In 1995, 10,000 people in Venezuela and 75,000 people in Colombia fell ill with a VEE strain that had escaped from a lab. The outbreak caused upwards of 311 deaths and 3,000 cases of neurological complications.
• SARS - Since the original epidemic, there have been six escapes of the virus from laboratories — four in Beijing, and an additional one each in Singapore and Taiwan.
• Hoof and Mouth Disease (UK) - In 2007, 278 animals in the UK became infected with FMD after the virus escaped from a biosafety lab four kilometers away. The outbreak required 1,578 animals to be culled and cost an estimated 200 million pounds.

Oh, but we're all paranoid conspiracy theorists for thinking that this escaped from a lab in China - which has already had this happen a half dozen times...THAT WE KNOW ABOUT!

[Jamestown1630]

Leprosy in wild armadillos isn’t something that was lab-produced. The disease was brought to South America hundreds of years ago by immigrants from countries where it was common. The armadillo is the only animal other than humans in which the disease can be isolated - it’s thought to have something to do with its low body temperature - and armadillos are used in the study of leprosy.

People in South America eat - and have always eaten - armadillos, and fashioned things our of the shells; and the animals have carried leprosy for hundreds of years.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Reston Virus escaped from a lab in the USA in Reston, Virginia - thankfully while it was deadly for monkeys, it is harmless to humans.

For clarification, that's EBOLA Reston -- we lucked out big time with that apparent mutation. Could have been Marburg virus, Ebola Sudan or Ebola Zaire, all potentially devastating to their human hosts.