Emerging Threats: Pandemics
Interviews:
Synthetic bioweapons, nonstate actors, innovations in health, conflict zones – Dr. Devabhaktuni
Srikrishna of MIT, contained the 2018 outbreak of Ebola in Congo
Emerging technologies, deep fakes, AI/ autonomous weapons, idiosyncratic geopolitics – Rear
Admiral John Gower UK Ministry of Defense
Climate change, urbanization/mass migrations, system architecture - Dr. Sunil Dubey of the UN,
the World Bank, and University of Sydney
Digital terrorism, ISIS, gang violence – DARPA, Dr. Desmond Patton, J.M. Berger
Segment (Hosted in 2018):
By 2030, there will be a denser population within cities. The infrastructure of these cities is lacking preparedness for major pandemics. The current hospital capacity focuses on a centralized approach with the capacity in the United States able to hold less than .3 percent of the population.
Infrastructure solutions:
Potential solutions regarding the current infrastructure are diagnostic tools or systems that enables decentralized approaches.
Discussion: Leverage technological advancements to develop a diagnostic tool that enables decentralization through empowerment of citizens to make decisions. Allowing them to have integral information without risking the spread of a virus within in a major pandemic.
Focused on systems thinking and the emergence of leadership within a situation of a pandemic in an urban environment, would the leadership positions to be proactive and contain reside in more of the private or public sphere or a governmental or intergovernmental body?
Can governments address as well as public health agencies be able to solve this problem?
Current challenges address current public health issues. Looking at startups.
Framework. What is the model of operations that will be used to compete?
Importance of a decentralized approach:
With the Ebola outbreak and the Air Force Base virus that was speculated to have been planted by Russia, with an outbreak the longer time it takes to contain it the virus can double. With Ebola in January 2015, the virus was doubling every two weeks or three breaks.
In each situation there was a continuous virus chain reaction. Moderator for the chain reaction.
Rebel groups staging violent attacks. Not able to get in till two or three days into where it is happening, and it is harder to contain.
Technological advancements allowing for synthesizing viruses:
With technology getting cheaper, synthesizing a virus from scratch is a possibility.
Recently with $100,000 researchers were able to develop a virus similar to small pox.
This is an issue because novel airborne viruses could potentially exceed the destructive
abilities of nuclear weapons.
They do cause a lot of destruction including calamities death and the havoc within the political, economic, and social structures within a given country. We are seeing a lot of similarities.
• Manipulating a virus is not as hard as stealing a nuclear weapon. We recently saw non-state actors leveraging social media, will we see non-state actors deploying an engineered virus as a weapon?
Deployment of a synthesized airborne virus in an urban environment vs a bioweapon:
Health care systems are very good at dealing with viruses that we have already seen. The operational models for dealing with novel viruses are not in place, such as vaccines and de-centralized systems.
Anthrax is not contagious. Influenza like, airborne which is the big part. Influenza has those impacted regenerated and transmitting the virus. Anthrax that does not happen. Anthrax cannot be transmitted by those infected.
Biomedical 3D printing. Is it possible to 3D print a bioweapon/material? Is it possible to 3D print a treatment/vaccine to prevent the spread of an outbreak?
With these emerging technical threats, how can we approach potential solutions to ensure that an adversarial group or an extremist group essentially does not reply bioweapons against their adversary? Essentially it will be hard to control the production of the viruses but what steps can be taken to have control over the design systems that protect us from naturally occurring pandemics as well.
What would happen if the food and water supplies were impacted by a bioweapon or synthesized virus for an urban population?
Situation: Non-state actors deploying a synthesized virus in a densely populated urban environment that is experiencing conflict and been impacted by disinformation campaigns.
1a) A city state or a city with a densely populated region has been targeted by an adversarial group or rouge actor.
1b) The adversarial group has deployed effective disinformation campaign focused on anti-vaccination within the densely populated region. This has led to the majority (over 43 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated to stop the spread) of the population in becoming not vaccinated.
1c) Aligned with the disinformation campaign, an engineered virus is then released by the adversarial group within the densely populated region.
1d) How should that situation be approached, in you have focused on localized governance structures but there are dynamics such as transportation, schools, and residences that should be factored in. The approach to contain a virus is different in conflict zones (i.e. Eastern DRC and Ukraine).
Additional Segments:
Summary: The Dynamics of Synthetic Biological Capabilities and the Anti-Vaccine Movement - 3-D Printing Bioweapons/Synthesized Pandemics and Offensive Cyber Strategies
Recent tech advancements have furthered the ability to synthesize a virus from scratch and how a rogue actor such as a terrorist group could repurpose it to serve as a bioweapon.
Highly motivated groups are able to take advantage of the structural flaws of the social ecosystem and attempt to manipulate public opinion and manufacture consensus.
Population trends demonstrate that 65% of the world population will be living in cities by 2030. Dense urban living facilitates the spread of infectious diseases. Transnational crime and the convergence of criminal and terrorist networks where the central core of these groups will be cities.
Potential dynamic: If an adversarial group ran an effective anti-vaccine campaign to get a majority of a city population to become not vaccinated, then aligned with a disinformation campaign, deployed a synthetic novel virus into a densely population region (city)…do we have the structures in place to deal with this dynamic?