I was listening to the news this morning and it carried a piece about the COBRA committee holding meetings regarding the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and I wondered why the government should make it such a high priority.
Then I was travelling on the Bakerloo Line and it occurred to me that there is a very good reason for the government to be worried. What would happen if some mad-person decided to turn themselves into a biological weapon. What would happen if that person deliberately sought to be infected with the Ebola virus and then travelled to any major centre of population, London, New York, Moscow, Bejing, take your pick.
You might think that its a mad idea, and it is, but we have seen people willing to turn themselves into human bombs for their cause so why not a biological bomb. And the consequences don't bear thinking about. Someone travels the Paris Metro or the New York subway or the central line in London, whilst they are infectious and touches as many people as possible, as much street furniture, railings, door knobs as possible. By the time they keel over they would have had contact with hundreds of people who would, in their turn, go on to have contacts with hundreds more.
There are plenty of books and movies which have based their premise on a similar idea but rarely have we had, in reality, enough of the key ingredients to make it possible. White Supremacists, Jihadis, Survivalists and religious extremists exist in industrial quantities and now we have Ebola. No wonder COBRA is keeping itself up to date.