This year has been marked by concerning developments in the virus’ spread, including widespread detections in wastewater and mutations observed in the virus.
bird flu pandemic will most likely be far worse than COVID was, and the virus is all around us just waiting for the right mutation.
I keep hearing this but its unclear to me why we should expect this strain to be worse than say, the Swine Flu that hit several years before Covid? I know it caused a few deaths but was generally pretty forgettable and short lived in peoples awareness.
Because it spreads by birds, who migrate a lot and is less fatal to them. And when a human catches it, i ha a high death rate. Currently the species jump is rare and only for those in contact with birds, but that could change.
Then it’s a constantly spreading disease with a high death rate.
Not really rare. It wrecked sea lion populations in Peru, penguin populations in the arctic. It was found in different bears species, foxes or pumas and as far as I understood it was deadly for them too. Millions of birds in wildlife. And now cows, cats and chickens.
If pigs get it (I don’t know if it happened already) it’ll get very serious. That’s how the “spanish” flu started in the USA.
I keep hearing this but its unclear to me why we should expect this strain to be worse than say, the Swine Flu that hit several years before Covid? I know it caused a few deaths but was generally pretty forgettable and short lived in peoples awareness.
Because it spreads by birds, who migrate a lot and is less fatal to them. And when a human catches it, i ha a high death rate. Currently the species jump is rare and only for those in contact with birds, but that could change.
Then it’s a constantly spreading disease with a high death rate.
Not really rare. It wrecked sea lion populations in Peru, penguin populations in the arctic. It was found in different bears species, foxes or pumas and as far as I understood it was deadly for them too. Millions of birds in wildlife. And now cows, cats and chickens.
If pigs get it (I don’t know if it happened already) it’ll get very serious. That’s how the “spanish” flu started in the USA.
https://wildlife.org/highly-pathogenic-bird-flu-an-unprecedented-threat-to-wildlife/
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