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Unlike COVID this seems to be a well known influenza variant so not sure there is much to be worried about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus

by dom96 4y ago

Unlike COVID this seems to be a well known influenza variant so not sure there is much to be worried about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1

ianlevesque 4y ago
File this one under comments that may not age well.
PostOnce 4y ago
the very article you linked says, in the Overview section: around 60% of humans known to have been infected with the Asian strain of HPAI A(H5N1) have died from it, and H5N1 may mutate or reassort into a strain capable of efficient human-to-human transmission.
- munk-a 4y ago
  Yea - one upside of extremely deadly diseases is that they have problems hitting pandemic levels due to how quickly hosts die off - the "best performing" diseases are rarely fatal but often come with serious long term effects so the host can spread it around a fair amount before their system gets it under control.
  - kuhewa 4y ago
    There's no guarantee of that pattern though because transmissibility and lethality are not always tightly coupled. E.g. there's no reason a pathogen can't have traits favouring heavy presymptomatic transmission but also progress to death rapidly at some point.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    There's still room for a pandemic to be at least 10 times worse virulence than COVID while still managing to be highly transmissible since that is what happened with 1918. And instead of predominantly killing the elderly it went after 30 year olds and babies as well.
radicaldreamer 4y ago
The main thing to worry about is if this starts spreading, the combination of 1) lockdowns being politically unfeasible and 2) lack of a mass produced vaccine
- ygjb 4y ago
  The Overton window on the feasibility of lockdowns would get a bit of a shift if it becomes a pandemic with a 60% (or even a substantially lower) fatality rate.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Yea. I’m more interested in the manufacturing capacity of high quality masks, that seems like a low cost high payoff investment from a global health standpoint.
    - dham 4y ago
      I'm more interested in just shutting down air travel every winter or just period. It's much easier and actually works. Sure we have to go back to a period around 60 years ago but the alternative is going back 100 years in civilization.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    That's if you could get a sizeable chunk of the population to accept the data. Unfortunately, as we've seen with covid there are all sorts of "the guberment is lying to us!" type conspiracy theories out there and it could take a while before the truth sinks in - from seeing friends, family and neighbors experiencing serious illness and/or mortality. But when it gets to that point it's kind of too late. I think we're in a vulnerable space right now where in some ways the divisions that were exposed and heightened by the covid pandemic leave us less able to deal with another serious pandemic in the near term. Add in pandemic fatigue and it's even worse.
    - boc 4y ago
      Covid was a "perfect" conspiracy disease because the symptoms were so different person-to-person. A 50%+ lethal disease won't leave many survivors to say "it wasn't that bad, everyone overreacted!". The initial wave of conspiracy-minded folks won't have a great time to say the least.
roywiggins 4y ago
It's well-known, insofar as people have been worried about it going pandemic for a long time. Definitely not the first outbreak or even the first deaths so there's no particular reason to think this time is the time it goes pandemic, but it's not exactly comforting. https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/08/tracking-the-bird-flu-experts-see-a-familiar-threat-and-a-virus-whose-course-is-hard-to-predict/ https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/08/tracking-the-bird-flu-ex...
throwaway5752 4y ago
Your point about COVID, aka SARS-CoV-2 being not well known is incorrect. Zoonotic coronoviruses were a major concern, and COVID's relative, SARS-CoV-1 killed almost 1,000 people and was a major health incident in 2002-2004. MERS-CoV killed another 1,000 people 10 years later. COVID came from a well known and family of viruses of high concern and still caused enormous damage.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  Not sure what you're talking about. The class of viruses SARS-CoV-2 belonged to was known, but that specific virus was "unknown" in the sense that it had never been seen outside the lab that developed it. It killed millions. You're right that H5N1 has the potential to be worse.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    There's nothing about it being "known" that makes it that much better. Might make it worse since the "it is just the flu" people will literally be able to point to the fact that it is an influenza strain that was already known as for the reason why they don't need to worry about it.
    - slowmovintarget 4y ago
      Agreed. That dismissal would be crazy. We've known about bird flu, because we've been watching it, dreading the day when it might mutate and cross over to humans.

by dom96 4y ago

ianlevesque 4y ago

File this one under comments that may not age well.

PostOnce 4y ago

the very article you linked says, in the Overview section: around 60% of humans known to have been infected with the Asian strain of HPAI A(H5N1) have died from it, and H5N1 may mutate or reassort into a strain capable of efficient human-to-human transmission.

munk-a 4y ago
Yea - one upside of extremely deadly diseases is that they have problems hitting pandemic levels due to how quickly hosts die off - the "best performing" diseases are rarely fatal but often come with serious long term effects so the host can spread it around a fair amount before their system gets it under control.
- kuhewa 4y ago
  There's no guarantee of that pattern though because transmissibility and lethality are not always tightly coupled. E.g. there's no reason a pathogen can't have traits favouring heavy presymptomatic transmission but also progress to death rapidly at some point.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  There's still room for a pandemic to be at least 10 times worse virulence than COVID while still managing to be highly transmissible since that is what happened with 1918. And instead of predominantly killing the elderly it went after 30 year olds and babies as well.

radicaldreamer 4y ago

The main thing to worry about is if this starts spreading, the combination of 1) lockdowns being politically unfeasible and 2) lack of a mass produced vaccine

ygjb 4y ago
The Overton window on the feasibility of lockdowns would get a bit of a shift if it becomes a pandemic with a 60% (or even a substantially lower) fatality rate.
- Retric 4y ago
  Yea. I’m more interested in the manufacturing capacity of high quality masks, that seems like a low cost high payoff investment from a global health standpoint.
  - dham 4y ago
    I'm more interested in just shutting down air travel every winter or just period. It's much easier and actually works. Sure we have to go back to a period around 60 years ago but the alternative is going back 100 years in civilization.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  That's if you could get a sizeable chunk of the population to accept the data. Unfortunately, as we've seen with covid there are all sorts of "the guberment is lying to us!" type conspiracy theories out there and it could take a while before the truth sinks in - from seeing friends, family and neighbors experiencing serious illness and/or mortality. But when it gets to that point it's kind of too late. I think we're in a vulnerable space right now where in some ways the divisions that were exposed and heightened by the covid pandemic leave us less able to deal with another serious pandemic in the near term. Add in pandemic fatigue and it's even worse.
  - boc 4y ago
    Covid was a "perfect" conspiracy disease because the symptoms were so different person-to-person. A 50%+ lethal disease won't leave many survivors to say "it wasn't that bad, everyone overreacted!". The initial wave of conspiracy-minded folks won't have a great time to say the least.

roywiggins 4y ago

It's well-known, insofar as people have been worried about it going pandemic for a long time. Definitely not the first outbreak or even the first deaths so there's no particular reason to think this time is the time it goes pandemic, but it's not exactly comforting. https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/08/tracking-the-bird-flu-experts-see-a-familiar-threat-and-a-virus-whose-course-is-hard-to-predict/ https://www.statnews.com/2023/02/08/tracking-the-bird-flu-ex...

throwaway5752 4y ago

Your point about COVID, aka SARS-CoV-2 being not well known is incorrect. Zoonotic coronoviruses were a major concern, and COVID's relative, SARS-CoV-1 killed almost 1,000 people and was a major health incident in 2002-2004. MERS-CoV killed another 1,000 people 10 years later. COVID came from a well known and family of viruses of high concern and still caused enormous damage.

slowmovintarget 4y ago
Not sure what you're talking about. The class of viruses SARS-CoV-2 belonged to was known, but that specific virus was "unknown" in the sense that it had never been seen outside the lab that developed it. It killed millions. You're right that H5N1 has the potential to be worse.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  There's nothing about it being "known" that makes it that much better. Might make it worse since the "it is just the flu" people will literally be able to point to the fact that it is an influenza strain that was already known as for the reason why they don't need to worry about it.
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    Agreed. That dismissal would be crazy. We've known about bird flu, because we've been watching it, dreading the day when it might mutate and cross over to humans.