Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
A person in Louisiana has died from a bird flu virus known as H5N1. This is the first known death related to the virus in the US. The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) has not identified additional H5N1 cases in the state nor found evidence of person-to-person transmission, indicating that the risk to the general public remains low.
The person was hospitalised for the virus in December, after contracting it from infected or dead birds in their backyard. They experienced severe respiratory symptoms. It was the first serious case of H5N1 in the US. The LDH announced their death on 6 January and said that they were older than 65 and had underlying health conditions.
Will there be another pandemic after covid-19 and are we prepared?
Covid-19 is responsible for the deaths of millions of people around the world, but researchers fear the next global outbreak could be even worse, making it vital that we start preparing for that unknown pathogen now
In total, 66 people in the US have tested positive for H5N1, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most of them developed mild symptoms, such as eye redness, and worked with infected cows or chickens.
H5N1, which has killed tens of millions of wild and domestic birds worldwide, has been circulating in dairy cows across the US for almost a year now. Genetic analysis of samples collected from the person in Louisiana indicate that the person was infected with the D1.1 genotype of the virus, which is similar to the viruses recently detected in wild birds, but distinct from the version spreading in cattle. There is no evidence that the virus can transmit between people.
The analysis also identified several changes that may improve the virus’ ability to bind to cells in the upper airways of humans, which largely lack receptors for most bird flu viruses. According to the CDC, it is likely these changes happened after the person was infected – any time someone contracts a bird flu virus, it gives it a chance to evolve and become better at spreading between us. One of the changes was also seen in a person who fell severely ill with H5N1 in Canada in November.
(Score: 4, Funny) by SpockLogic on Saturday January 11, @08:38PM (3 children)
YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE
Well sooner or later ...
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by DadaDoofy on Saturday January 11, @10:26PM (1 child)
Life is a 100% terminal disease. No one has ever survived it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11, @11:41PM
Bullshit. The current population is 5% of all the humans who have ever lived. The human race currently has a mortality of about 95%. QED.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12, @09:05AM
But... but... cloroquine ... and zinc ... and vitamin D... and bleach
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday January 11, @09:17PM (3 children)
*Probably*. How it develops depends on what mutations it picks up while learning to spread in people. Eventually it will evolve into "just another flu", but the early stages are likely to be ... interesting. However it currently doesn't seem to know how to spread from human to human, and until it evolves that it won't be a pandemic...or even a bad flu season. It may kill a lot more of the people it infects, but it will infect so few that the number will be negligible (unless you are one of them).
I suppose you could ask the cows what it feels like, but I doubt the answer would be helpful.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11, @11:51PM
I guess we could check recent published papers and see what "gain of function"s the Wutan labs are working on.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday January 12, @04:44PM
Interesting thing to think about:
Media coverage positively correlates with large number of dead livestock poultry because that's awesome for fearmongering.
Infection ability in primates likely weakly inversely correlates with large number of dead livestock poultry
Likely the time to worry is when the media is NOT covering a poultry-optimized virus but when somethings silently floating around that could be less poultry-optimized and more primate-optimized and therefore zero news coverage until people start getting infected outta nowhere. Kind of like how covid appeared after that lab leak in China not after the traditional annual fearmongering about how this time the flu will claim all the true believers.
Also realize legacy news media is dying. Its going to be infinite fearmongering and clickbait like this, admittedly mostly ignored by most people, until the last "journalist" gives up and gets a job pushing carts at Costco. Ironically, Trump's re-election combined with the mental illness of 'trump derangement syndrome' will keep the legacy media going juuuuust a little longer before shutting down. They seem to be spiraling out of control on the new 'elon derangement syndrome'. Shriekers gotta shriek they'll likely never stop calling "someone" the current nazi-menace. They're so tiresome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13, @01:14AM
THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN. You need to ask yourself if you're parroting eugenics nonsense because you're a eugenicist, or because you don't care if people hear what you have to say and think, "What a fuckign eugenicist".
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday January 11, @09:25PM (8 children)
So bird flu IS just like covid where everyone who's old, fat, sick, or nearly dead who dies "with" it will be recorded as dying "because of" it.
I can't wait until we torpedo the economy, education, and lifestyle again because of "eye redness". And mass internet censorship, of course.
Then out comes another vaccine that has no preventative or curative effect but does make young people have heart attacks.
You'd think they would have waited for the inauguration to be over first, clearly this is going to be fun!
Also, these numbers are amateur compared to monkeypox. That disease got memory-holed in the media once it became clear it only affected alphabet people and minors "exposed" to alphabet people. Will be interesting to see how bird flu spreads.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Saturday January 11, @09:53PM (2 children)
"I can't wait until we torpedo the economy, education, and lifestyle again."
The same authoritarians that were responsible the first time are desperate to shut it all down again. The good news is, people are wise to what the shutdowns cost us and they aren't going to stand for it again any time soon. Once you've pissed away the trust, it isn't easily regained. It will likely take decades.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Saturday January 11, @10:10PM (1 child)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/403166/americans-trust-media-remains-near-record-low.aspx [gallup.com]
The generational-long graphs are absolutely wild. Its hard to believe the media was trusted just half a century ago.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11, @11:48PM
Interesting echo chamber effect there. The media is heavily democrat, and 70% of democrats trust it, while only 27% of republicans do.
<sarc> Could that distrust from Rs possibly be due to lived experience, actually being at events and then seeing how the media reported it. </sarc>
(Score: 2) by dwilson98052 on Sunday January 12, @01:59AM (4 children)
Unless it's ebola I'm not playing the government games retarded game again... I'd rather die free than alone.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12, @09:17AM (3 children)
In the condition of a pandemic, high chances your wish will be granted: you will die free and in the presence of a dead-tired and overworked nurse watching your monitors to the earliest indication of clinical death; because the hospital needs your death bed badly, for the next one who would rather die free and not alone.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12, @09:44AM
I think most likely, I will die in my own bed, and leave a terrible stench in my house. My neighbors will likely report me to the city for stinking up the neighborhood.
They may have to burn my house to stop the stink.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday January 12, @04:35PM (1 child)
We only had an authoritarian opportunistic power grab scam, not a "real" pandemic, and we're infinitely more likely to get scammed again than to have an actual pandemic.
Even when including the sickest fatest oldest closest to death people, covid peaked around 1.8% case fatality rate. The vax has cost a lot more lost total human-years than the virus ever did given that it mostly seemed to kill healthy young people (so far). Assuming everyone was a random age and lived to precisely the average 77.5 years, the fatality rate of dying normally with covid as opposed to dying by covid is already 1.3%
If someone's not already almost dead, the new bird flu might give them "eye redness" as per the untrustworthy US CDC ... I think we will be OK. You, maybe not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13, @11:01AM
You probably got your head so stuck far in your butt that you won't see the truth even if you tried.
You're basically claiming all the hospital, morgue and crematorium workers around the world were lying. Or even the florists: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/valentines-day-and-covid-wreaths-florists-have-never-seen-a-february-like-this-idUSKBN2A80VQ/ [reuters.com]
I know someone whose family runs a florist business, and he said the funeral wreath business was "good" during the covid time. So you're going to believe someone was faking stuff by buying and sending funeral wreaths to fake funerals? 🤣
In the 3 years I personally knew people who died of covid-19. Whereas in the past decades I don't personally know of any who died of seasonal flu. So it definitely was more deadly that "yet another flu".
If the USA is going to remain so crappy at handling pandemics maybe the next pandemic even if it doesn't start in China, the USA will still blame China (it's rival) for not trying hard enough to convince them harder that there's a global pandemic. Despite again locking down provinces and building hospitals very quickly. 🤣