Our customer support team is here to answer your questions. Ask us anything!
👋 WhatsApp Us Now
Download the game Plague, Inc. from the Apple App Store (iPhone, iPod, iPad), the Google Play Store (Android), or the Amazon App Store (Android).
Alternatively, you can choose to download and play Infection Bio War, which is similar to Plague, Inc. and which is also available for iOS and Android devices.
If you do not have a compatible mobile device, you can go to Pandemic 2 – Plague Inc Hacked (http://www.hackedonlinegames.com/game/428/pandemic-2-plague-inc) and play a computer version that is very similar to the mobile game.
Play the game! Your goal is to infect the world and destroy humanity. The game offers three levels, but you should play Normal (or Realistic in Pandemic 2) to have the best experience. Play the game once or twice to get a sense of strategy and gauge how well you can spread your pathogen.
Next, play the game again and keep specific notes about your experience including the strategies that you use to successfully spread the pathogen in terms of infectivity, severity, and lethality.
Based on your experience with the game, and your learning to this point in the course, consider the following (given that your typical role in healthcare would be to combat the spread of a pathogen). Write a two- to three-page paper:
What insights did you glean from playing the role of the pathogen in the game?
Characterize the strategies that you used to spread the pathogen. Which were most successful?
Discuss the extent to which the events in the game mimic a real-world epidemic.
Provide two examples of actual diseases that spread beyond the borders of a single country. Describe the success of efforts to contain the diseases.
Playing the role of a pathogen in the game of Plague, Inc. and Infection Bio War has provided me with unique insights into the strategies that can be employed to spread a disease quickly and effectively. I found that my most successful strategies involved focusing on increasing both the infectivity and severity of my virus while also maintaining its lethality at a low level so as to maximize its spread before it was noticed by healthcare professionals who could then begin working on treatments or preventative measures. The events in these games do mimic a real-world epidemic; when playing on normal difficulty, players must take into account geographical factors such as air travel, climate suitability for transmission, population density, government responses, etc., all of which are important components of how diseases spread in reality.
Two examples of diseases that have been incredibly successful at spreading beyond their country’s borders are HIV/AIDS and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). HIV/AIDS became an international crisis due to its high infection rate coupled with its long incubation period which allowed carriers to travel long distances without knowing they were infected until symptoms began showing up much later. In response to this global mobility issue many countries implemented laws restricting entry based on testing for HIV status which has helped mitigate some cases but not completely stopped it from crossing borders illegally. EVD is another example where it was able to quickly spread throughout West Africa due to poor infrastructure in rural areas allowing transmission between villages but very limited access too healthcare resources leading to large number deaths when outbreaks occurred. International aid organizations stepped in by providing funds for mobile health clinics as well as providing protective equipment for those working directly with patients helping contain the outbreak in most areas within two years after it first emerged.