Mobile apps are a fabulous waste of time and infinitely diverting. Except for “Plague Inc.”

The object of this strategy game is to achieve biological annihilation of the world with a complex virus or bacterial infection that runs roughshod over borders, seeking warm and moist host bodies. People are infected and die regardless of their religion or nationality. “Plague” is an accelerated depiction of the race between finding a cure for disease and Armageddon.

Slower-motion, real-world infectious diseases are also mass-murdering terrors of the modern era – ones that usually get short shrift except when actual outbreaks occur.

Nearly a century ago, at the end of World War I, more people died of the Spanish Flu – somewhere between 20 million and 40 million – than had died in the “war to end all wars.” That influenza epidemic remains the deadliest disease in recorded history. Yes, more than the 14th century’s Black Death bubonic plague.

The newly resurrected Zika virus is not anywhere near as dangerous or deadly as the Spanish Flu. Zika is like the sniffles when compared to the Black Death. As with most diseases, not everyone gets infected, but everyone is affected. Read more