I know, get a virus and make out its 10000 times worse
I have the perfect virus: Stupidity.
Oh, crap, that won't work. It has already infected 95% of the population. Fortunately, the other 5% of us have absolute immunity. Although I do catch a mild version on occasions. Even better, those who are immune get more protection from mild bouts as they get older. This extra protection is often called wisdom!
Unfortunately, there has never been a cure for it. They have developed many potential vaccines, generally grouped as either education or experience, but they offer only short-term protection for the virus and have no effect at all on the worst cases.
The strange thing is that these vaccines have proven to be invaluable to those already with immunity. It greatly reduces the risk of catching mild but inconvenient bouts of the virus.
They have developed valuable tools to assist in determining if people have the virus. One even detects the seriousness of the infection.
The scientists install a useless politician in power whose only skill is to keep getting elected. They then watch the population as this person make mistake after mistake after mistake and group those who still support them as being infected. Those who don't are classed as immune. This test seems to have no false positives or negatives.
The people who offer the most support, and those who vilify anyone with a different view are deemed to be the most infected.
One sad and tragic side effect of this virus is that it opens the door to all other viruses. Those with this infection will go to great lengths to ensure the rapid spread of any other virus. One consequence is that, in doing so, eventually a virus is propagated that kills both those with the stupidity virus and those immune from it.
In fact, the current virus, propagated by stupidity, targets many elderly people with enhanced levels of immunity from stupidity having developed much wisdom.
This is a most stubborn and clever virus.
take care
Mike