MOSCOW, RUSSIA — Russian officials assured the international community Monday that there was no reason to panic over reports of the deadly escaped pneumonic plague bacteria, explaining that the organisms were expected to die out naturally after killing everyone they encountered.
Speaking at a sparse press conference in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin dismissed Western alarmism, characterizing the potential global mortality event not as a containment failure, but as a temporary, self-correcting epidemiological phase.
“There is absolutely no cause for alarm,” said Putin in the televised speech. “Our scientists have determined that the bacteria cannot survive indefinitely without human hosts, and fortunately, the number of human hosts is rapidly decreasing.”
Russian authorities maintained that the situation remained under control, emphasizing that the bacteria had shown no signs of becoming a long-term threat to the global population.
“People hear the word ‘plague’ and immediately become hysterical,” added Putin. “But the important thing to remember is that a plague is only dangerous to living people. Once everyone is dead, it is completely harmless.”
At press time, Russian scientists were reportedly conducting additional tests to determine whether humanity could simply wait out the plague by dying faster than it could reproduce.
