If everything else were to remain the same; keeping the infected alive longer wouldn't necessarily do much at all. The trouble comes when that person spreads the virus to someone else, perhaps with a compromised immune system. If the virus load in the newly infected person is the product of that portion of the original virus which wasn't killed by the "99% effective" methods of killing them, then that victim now has a more robust form of the virus, likely harder to treat.
Those seem like scenarios that would necessarily involve this crypto currency actually being successful. That in itself is terribly unlikely. At best, it'll end up being a Facebook-only token that inevitably becomes cash.
Unless Facebook and Amazon had a demonic love-child beast of a system... Perish the thought.
Given what you're going for, Javascript will be your most important friend, followed by css even if you aren't a designer, as well as html. It's worth also learning git. Still, you'll have to learn more the concepts, and even then you have to roll with the punches. We're all re-learning constantly.
But not necessarily more virulent.