There were the inevitable thrill seekers who went to the infected areas out of curiosity, becoming new victims, which Fefferman has likened to journalists traveling to war zones who put themselves in harm's way to get a story.

He and his Tufts colleague, Nina Fefferman, co-authored a 2007 paper published in Lancet Infectious Diseases examining the potential implications of the Corrupted Blood incident for refining existing epidemiological models, since they would be able to draw on hard data showing how players actually responded during an outbreak.ДЇor instance, some players tried to help with healing spells, inadvertently making matters worse, since their efforts endured constant replenishment of those susceptible to the spell, rather than letting the outbreak run its course. AdvertisementДЄ sample of game play during the 2005 Corrupted Blood epidemic in World of Warcraft.ДЄn epidemiologist named Eric Lofgren, then at Tufts University, just happened to be an avid WoW player and was fascinated by the real-world parallels to how the epidemic played out in the virtual world. In the end, at least three servers were affected, and Blizzard had to reboot the entire game to correct the problem. Efforts at quarantine proved unsuccessful in stopping the outbreak. As Corrupted Blood infections spread uncontrollably, game spaces became littered with virtual 'corpses,' and players began to panic. They didn't show symptoms, but they were carriers and ended up spreading the disease even faster. The biggest factor in the rapid spread of the disease was a glitch in the programming, such that non-playable animal companions also became infected. Rather than standing their ground, many infected players panicked, teleporting out of the dungeon before dying or killing Hakkar, and taking the disease with them.В And lower ranking players, with fewer hit points, would 'die' very quickly upon exposure. The only cure was to kill Hakkar.ДЇurther Reading Losing yourself in virtual worlds can have good as well as negative effectsД«lizzard thought this would ensure the infection wouldn't spread beyond that space. Hakkar was a blood god known as the Soulflayer, who had, among his arsenal of weapons, a 'debuff' spell called 'Corrupted Blood.' Infected players would suffer damage at regular repeating intervals, draining away their 'hit points' until their avatars exploded in a cloud of blood. In 2005, Blizzard Entertainment added a new dungeon called Zul'Gurub into World of Warcraft for highly advanced players, controlled by an 'end boss' named Hakkar.

The Corrupted Blood outbreak was not intentional. Our epidemiological models are a bit better able to account for that unpredictability thanks in part to a virtual outbreak in World of Warcraft nearly fifteen years ago, known as the ' Corrupted Blood incident.' Others cling to denial, and still others are defying calls for ' social distancing' by continuing to go to restaurants,В bars, concerts, and so forth. We've certainly seen plenty of all-too-human responses to coronavirus over the last two weeks, with some people panicking and hoarding food, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer.

That makes it challenging to build accurate mathematical models to predict how the progress of the disease will play out. When it comes to a global pandemic, human beings are the ultimate wild card.

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