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Alice Austen's The Cobra Event

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Alice Austen's The Cobra Event
Richard Preston wrote the Cobra Event in 1997. Its characters and story is fictional but the science is real and based on what is possible. Real people working for the FBI and USAMRIID and other agencies were interviewed as to what could happen with current technologies. The author's other books are non-fiction and this story is based on so many expert's assistance that the story is almost looking into the future.

Alice Austen is a medical pathologist who works for the C.D.C.. She is sent to New York City to investigate the deaths of two people: a teenage girl and a homeless man who lives in the subway. Both died with grand mal seizures where the body forms and S, and with self-cannibalism of the tongue and mouth. Kate bought a box at a flea market that contained Cobra virus crystals. Alice Austen traces the activities of Kate Moran and Penny …show more content…
His intention was to spread the virus and kill half of everyone in the world. Once those susceptible to the virus died, the survivors would benefit because then there would be more resources for each person. Humans have been reproducing exponentially and modern medicine has helped the world become even more crowded than ever before. The Cobra virus is a genetically engineered bioweapon made from smallpox, the common cold, and a caterpillar virus that attacks the nervous system. It was named the Cobra virus because the boxes that were first found with the virus inside had a cobra drawn on their lids. There is no way to stop a virus besides a vaccine, which takes years to develop. The AIDS virus was discovered 17 years ago and there still is no vaccine. To test its effectiveness, Archimedes released two boxes in New York and a virus bomb in a D.C. subway. Only twenty people died from these boxes. A large biological bomb released in New York City would spread all over the world as people travel on
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