H5N1

[Toy Revolver]

well one thing covid taught us is that people don't care so once this gets its hooks in humanity prepare for some medieval style death and destruction

[jimmy jazz]

What makes you think that's gonna happen? They scaremongered about this about 15 years ago.

[Toy Revolver]

What makes you think that's gonna happen? They scaremongered about this about 15 years ago.

people still call reporting the facts about covid scaremongering even after millions of deaths

people have already been infected with H5N1 and over half of them died

the problem is people don't understand exponential growth and the nature of contagions

just like covid people will be like derp derp i don't need to quarantine and isolate can't make me take a vaccine i'm smart derpity derp derp

then after millions (or billions) of deaths they'll still be derp derping that it didn't really happen or it was the vaccine or it was chinese baloon kung fu or whatever else their stunted brains come up with

[Guybrush]

I don't worry much about avian flu myself. It's bad, but there haven't been that many cases when you think of how much infected poultry there's been. I don't think it infects via air/breath, at least not between humans who have a very different anatomy from birds. Of course, if you get it, you have a good chance of dying, but you can say the same for rabies and thankfully, we haven't seen a rabies pandemic.

[Toy Revolver]

well whatever the risk it can be mitigated to some degree just by getting a flu shot every year

rabies isn't a very good comparison imo but your point is taken that there are many very dangerous contagions that don't turn into plagues or pandemics

H5N1 is working its way into mammals


it's the massive amount of it and how many vectors there are that scares me - all that opportunity to mutate

and also that it's a flu - the flu has a done a lot of killing

[Guybrush]

The biggest threat in terms of flu mutating may come from pigs because they have their own flus, yet also catch bird flu and human flu, so they're potentially like flu mutation factories. And they're numerous.

Swine flu has also killed a lot of people already.

[Toy Revolver]

https://apnews.com/article/7c13ae3eace5f6aa347f43aaa119bc0b

An 11-year-old girl in Cambodia has died from bird flu in the country's first known human H5N1 infection since 2014, health officials said.

[Jwb]

Monkeypox much?

I'm not saying it's impossible to have back to back global pandemics but it sorta reminds me of when 9/11 happened and for a brief period it was unclear whether that sort of disaster would be the new normal.  But 20 years later it's starting to look like a once in a century type event.  I expect covid to be the same.

[Toy Revolver]

WW1 was the war to end all wars.

[Jwb]

WW1 was the war to end all wars.

ww1 bled into ww2, which was the last actual war we've had on this planet.  Everything since then is just foreplay. Just like your swine flu and bird flu and SARS were foreplay for Covid.  Viruses are just like people.  There is a big spectrum in terms of success and prestige.  Covid is like the Michael Jordan of pandemics. H1 whatever the fuck will be lucky to be Dennis Rodman.