Hybridized bird flu: a new pandemic could hit real soon that makes the covid-19 one look tame in comparison

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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NY Times essay by stellar journalist in this realm explains in understandable terms why and how under the current conditions a much more deadly and very transmissible pathogen could spread wildly among humans at any time. Steps should be taken now to prepare for this.

NY Times is behind a paywall, however this link to the piece will provide access it for 14 days, i.e. until Feb. 19, 2023:

 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
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Going to be lit for the antivaxxers when/if something a lot more deadly than COVID comes along.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
57,423
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Does this mean everyone will stay in their houses? I'm in favor of anything that keeps people home, and out of my way. 2020 was the best year in memory. I even saved a bat quarter to remember the halcyon days.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,507
8,102
136
Going to be lit for the antivaxxers when/if something a lot more deadly than COVID comes along.
Myself, I'm always first in line for vaccination. Got all 5 of my covid-19 vaxxes ASAP. Got my Omicron Moderna booster Sept. 9, was just thinking today I haven't heard anything about my next booster. ;) Saw something about a yearly one being contemplated.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
46,044
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Does this mean everyone will stay in their houses? I'm in favor of anything that keeps people home, and out of my way. 2020 was the best year in memory. I even saved a bat quarter to remember the halcyon days.

nah a number of vaccines exist and an mRNA version could be put into mass production quickly
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,507
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nah a number of vaccines exist and an mRNA version could be put into mass production quickly
The article said mass production of existing H1N5 vaccines would take 6 months, an mRNA version maybe 3 months (once designed, I assume). If the strain is super deadly, the latency will be a giant problem. Even so, with 7 billion humans on the planet, the doses available would be very very insufficient.
 
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K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
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The article said mass production of existing H1N5 vaccines would take 6 months, an mRNA version maybe 3 months (once designed, I assume). If the strain is super deadly, the latency will be a giant problem. Even so, with 7 billion humans on the planet, the doses available would be very very insufficient.

Pfizer says 60 days for ready to use product and that was a while ago. With the global expansion of mRNA production capacity it's going to take a lot less time than with COVID.
 
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Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
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I seem to recall bringing this up quite a while ago. :confused_old:

This one is potentially real scary. (unlike monkey-pox)
 

Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
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Indirectly, it's the fault of factory farming. Big Ag's Poultry farms are nasty. Hog farms are nasty.

Yeah, you can vaccinate poultry workers in those crap conditions...but flu is the flu. It's not going to mutate still. So, the author is a bit of a vaccine simp.

If another pandemic happens...medicine and practitioners are partly to blame. COVID was the punishment for Big Pharma and Big Med profiting off the backs of maladjusted modern diets.

In addition, there is no real motivation to get older people actally healthy...because once they are no longer taxpayers but rather tax benefit users....the invisible will of business in government seeks to eliminate "costs" like those people.

Looking at her creds: sociologist. So, best to call her educated yet unaware and tunnel-visoned.
 
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Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
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Actually she's probably a lot less tunnel-visioned than you are.
She repeats the spiel about migratory birds being a threat. I would dispute that. Big Chicken's big ass farms all over the world are the real threat.

She mentioned mink farms has having crowded conditions, but not the pig or the chicken farms, only wild game.

Talks about mass vaccinating the birds on a poultry farm. I think she forgot this is a flu, so they would have to be vaxxed every year but the condition are such literal shit the chances of some virus surviving the vaxx and adapting to it will occur.

16 years ago, GrrlScientist blogged about the actual spread of bird flu, which was via poultry shipments and not wild birds. Seems like 16 years of factory farming has let evolution work bird flu into increased transmissiblity.

 
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Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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Hopefully we have decades yet. A whole lot of people would lose it.
All the more reason to do what's possible ahead of time. It's like an earthquake, could happen today, could happen in 30 years. We were not very ready for covid-19, to put it mildly.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,340
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Well, the WEF has basically said that covid wasn't enough, and that they plan on infecting us again, this time with more serious population control effects.

(If you believe like a certain subset of the population does.)
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,507
8,102
136
Well, the WEF has basically said that covid wasn't enough, and that they plan on infecting us again, this time with more serious population control effects.

(If you believe like a certain subset of the population does.)
Myself, I'm fairly grounded in science and steer clear of conspiracy theories when it comes to medical issues.
 

UNCjigga

Lifer
Dec 12, 2000
24,817
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End all mink farms in Europe (seriously, how many are left after Covid?) and make H5N1 surveillance screening mandatory for hogs in the US. Might buy us some time, but if H5N1 is already doing community spread between mink populations in Europe, then it may be too little, too late. Just a matter of time before it picks up RNA from human flu strains and starts to replicate and spread person to person.
 
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Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
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Hopefully we have decades yet. A whole lot of people would lose it.

It's already been spreading mostly unchecked for several years if you've been following the news on the topic and has spread to both wild/migrating AND domestic/farmed bird-populations around the globe.

Essentially at this point some degree of "crossover" into the human population is pretty much inevitable. The only question is if we get another true pandemic out of it.

Frankly I wouldn't be shocked at all to see bird-flu explode and go world-wide in a hurry infecting people just like influenza did in 1918.
 
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