Question: You answered my questioon which was 'What are your views on there being a virus break out, infecting humans and there being an apocolypse?' You said that a virus could happen how not sure about the apocolypse. Are you sure a apocolypse couldn't happen. Humans could become infected with a virus and the world could crumble without more human existence. Im not being paranoid, but is there a virus that could break out causing this?

Rebecca Scott answered on 25 Jun 2013:

Sometimes we get what we call epidemics, where a new virus attacks and we haven’t yet discovered anti-bodies and things to create cures and vaccinations, so the disease spreads really quickly. Examples of this would be the Black Death (the plague) in the Middle Ages, or when European travellers 1st visited the Americas and infected the native people with our colds (which they weren’t immune to). More recently we had things like bird flu and swine fever.

But I don’t think we would get an apocalypse because the governments of the world have a lot of special procedures set up to stop that sort of event. They have what are called resilience protocols, which help contain problems in the quickest and safest way. So specific areas and sometimes people can get quarantined to stop the further spread. Contaminated things are disposed of and destroyed, again preventing the spread. Scientists work on cures and vaccinations.

There are some horrible diseases in the world but there is not likely to be an apocalypse. The worst thing you can do is panic because then people don’t think sensibly and do silly things. The important thing is to stay calm.