Epidemic

The epidemic swept the world. Fortunately, it was only the World of Warcraft, a popular online role-playing game. But that got the attention of real disease experts at Tufts and Rutgers Universities. That's because the [accidental:accurate] outbreak that attacked the virtual [characters:features] offered a unique opportunity to study how social groups can help spread a disease.In late 2005 the epidemic hit the World of Warcraft, played by millions. It all started with an error. One creature was supposed to infect only a few virtual players with so-called corrupted blood. But some of the nastiest virtual [inhabitants:people] exploited a flaw and spread the disease to unsuspecting masses. The virtual quarantines game [designers:experts] tried to impose didn't work, in part because the virtual people didn't follow them, and so entire virtual cities were virtually destroyed.The experts were fascinated because they've have never had a way to realistically simulate how large groups of people will react to an epidemic. But the cure for a [real:fake] epidemic still won't be as easy as the virtual one was - they just reprogrammed the computers.