Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Game of Flu

Swine flu is one of the big stories these days as we approach another flu season in the northern hemisphere. How do you control a flu epidemic? Well, Dutch researchers are going to let you give it a try by playing the Great Flu Game. Your goal is to control the worldwide pandemic through a variety of means such as stockpiling anti-virals, closing schools, restricting travel, etc. You even get to choose the virus you want to track. Everything you do has a cost and you have a budget, so you can't do everything (which means you may not be able to save some very unhappy people). How much do you spend on research vs anti-virals vs vaccines?

I haven't gotten a chance to play the game yet, but it looks interesting. Guess I have to save the world tonight.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

1 comment:

kkdither said...

That was quite possibly the scariest game I ever played. Gee thanks for that one, hale!

I conquered the simple chicken flu virus and saved the planet... not before killing off way too many people.

The next level virus was on its way to killing the planet because I squandered my resources in the wrong places and ran out. The creepy bubbly virus music got to me. I had to quit.