This is fascinating. I actually started writing a scifi novel about zombies that had something similar called ripple. The state wasn't talking about the outbreak but the videos spread through ripple and people were freaked out.
....
The government tried to prevent the mainstream media from showing the pictures but with the Internet this was impossible.
At least until the Internet fell...
It was still all over Cast though. It was encrypted, onion routed, wireless, and distributed. Cast eventually destroyed all the social networks like Facebook and Twitter and left then in the dust like so many Friendsters.
Pictures and videos of small outbreaks spread over Cast like ripples in a vast pond. Except these were more like information tsunamis. They just kept coming.
You would bump a video and send it to your friends only to find another video a few moments later.
Something was happening and we all knew.
You don't expect the speed at first. You can't outrun them. My theory is that the virus evolved to spread through accelerated replication. A long life is not a problem so burning out the body isn't an issue.
When a virus first mutates into an effective form, and the host population is extensive, it’s usually fatal.
The only goal of a virus is replication. If it kills the host but can replicate faster then that’s the strategy that will be selected. Especially when there are plenty of hosts.
And that was the problem with humanity. There are billions of people on the Earth. Most of which live in the cities. None of which have any immunity to H.
Evolution is a bitch.