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H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted to Know
- hunglee2 2y agoI fear we have lost the collective will to conduct pandemic mitigation. The next time something bad comes round, we're just going to have it wash over us and Black Death it. It's a shame
- skrebbel 2y agoI'm not sure we ever had it.
- trescenzi 2y agoYea I was in college during Swine Flu and it was mostly treated as a joke. It became an excuse to miss class and the closest the college came to taking it seriously were some strongly worded recommendations to not leave your dorm if you have it. Of course that _might_ be because it wasn’t that bad. But if you get to the point that it’s spreading that regularly you’ve already lost the ability to control it regardless of severity.
- teeray 2y agoMy armchair theory is that it’s partly a marketing problem. Covid was treated with more fear because it was “the coronavirus” at first. Everyone has had “the flu” before, but nobody had had the spooky “coronavirus” at that point (even if they had—they just hadn’t heard of it). “It’s just the flu bro” is a difficult mindset to overcome. The same marketing problem existed with CVEs before Heartbleed. CVE-2014-0160 just doesn’t sound as frightening.
- sadboi31 2y agoThe US government was also recorded (and confirmed) as dumping TONS of covid misinformation throughout the entire world. Leaks from a defense contractor showed as much. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covi... Helping a local org give thousands of covid shots to seniors, people living in congregate housing, etc# was not easy because there was a lot of resistance from these communities due to the massive amounts of scary information out there. If you want an example see this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360815298_Foreign_Materials_in_Blood_Samples_of_Recipients_of_COVID-19_Vaccines https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360815298_Foreign_M... It really felt like there was literally nothing wholesome on anyones feeds for almost an entire year. Limited exposure from all non-profits i know of in my community. Significantly reduced views, deleted posts, erroneous flags, etc#..... Meanwhile, everyone in every neighborhood gets nothing but images + videos of people dying or getting sick from "the jab", "5g", "the mark of the beast", etc# Most of the women running these non-profits are former executives, local gov't officials, or workers in DHS or other like agencies. They're not stupid and incapable of "getting a message out". Something is and was seriously wrong w/ operation lightspeed.
- archagon 2y agoCovid was treated with fear because it was massively contagious.
- dist-epoch 2y agoI guess you missed the part with overwhelmed hospitals and grave yards.
- mike_hearn 2y agoCOVID was treated with more fear due to the impact of academic modelling, and in particular the models by Neil Ferguson's group at Imperial College. I remember the sequencing quite well here, the massive freakout and sudden interest in extreme lockdowns appeared immediately after Ferguson went to the press because his models predicted sky high casualty rates if lockdowns weren't implemented immediately. In reality his models were full of bugs, stupid assumptions and were generally unvalidated garbage tier work that didn't match reality at all. A few other epidemiologists pointed that out at the time, but governments are completely undiscerning when it comes to "science" and the press love bad news, so they went with it. End results were wildly off what he predicted.
- tim333 2y agoI think it was more watching people die gruesomely on ventilators in the early days and worries that could be widespread. In fact most people had already had the "four known seasonal coronaviruses (non-Covid-19)" but not really noticed as they are like the common cold.
- arwhatever 2y agoIf I recall, the decision to quarantine people who had contracted Ebola was totally uncontroversial, but I can’t speculate as to how that willingness would scale.
- agilob 2y agoBack around 2007-2009 there was a risk of bird flu in central Europe. We had a local ban on washing cars except in fully automated car washes, it wasn't controversial at all. We just went along with it.
- vanattab 2y agoThat's very different then shuting down the economy and locking people in their houses. I am not saying I think the response was unreasonable (at least initially) but many people cleary did.
- matthews2 2y agoWhat is the link between car washing and spreading bird flu?
- dist-epoch 2y agoCar visits a farm with infected chickens, picks up dirt with viruses on the wheels, brings it into cities. This is one way how it spreads from farm to farm.
- agilob 2y agoWe have lots of trees in the area, it was said not to get close to bird poops and avoid contact with water where birds pollute.
- tim333 2y agoI'm presuming birds poop on cars, spraying the cars with a hose puts droplets of it in the air.
- panarky 2y agoApparently we had the capability for collective action at one time, but most of us weren't around then. The political order of the New Deal lasted from roughly the Great Depression until about 1980. It wasn't just about government actions, it was more about how most people understood the world what it means to live a good life. That way of thinking about the world enabled collective action to improve the standard of living for most people, reduce poverty and inequality, give most people better health, housing and longer lives, faster and safer transportation, dignity in old age, etc. But that political order was replaced by neoliberalism, which started in the 1980s and probably ended at the 2008 financial collapse. Again, it was not only a new political order, it was a shift in how people understood the world and their place in it. It was a time of deregulation, globalized commerce and capital flows, and the supremacy of market-based solutions. We got dramatic increases in inequality, unimaginable individual wealth combined with tent cities and a resurgence of infectious disease. It's hard to imagine accomplishing big collective goals like building an interstate highway system, or implementing social security, or winning a world war against fascism, if all that hadn't been done already. We might not even be capable of maintaining what previous generations were able to build from nothing. I've spent my life swimming in the water of neoliberalism so it's almost impossible to imagine that there are alternatives. It feels like effective collective action for the greater good has never been possible and never will be.
- draw_down 2y ago[dead]
- gotoeleven 2y agoYeah if only people had put a fourth layer of cotton over their faces and refrained from blowing out birthday candles.
- paulcole 2y agoYes, it quickly became clear that at least in the US the majority of the population will not accept any restrictions until (at least) there are bodies literally piled in the streets. And probably not even then, IMO. Will be a grim scene.
- draw_down 2y ago[dead]
- phkahler 2y agoPeople in the US followed until the government got stupid, lied, caved to corporations, etc. If you want people to follow instructions, you need to demonstrate competence first.
- paulcole 2y agoReread my comment carefully. I don’t care why people won’t obey. It’s just clear that they will not obey.
- indigodaddy 2y agoAnd why should they if it doesn’t make sense?
- paulcole 2y agoReread my comment carefully. I don’t care if they obey or not. It’s just clear they will not obey.
- indigodaddy 2y agoBut your comment implies they should blindly obey (does it not?)
- paulcole 2y ago
- kleton 2y agoIt was clear to people paying attention to the hard numbers by February 2020 that Covid was no threat to children and non-elderly adults without risk factors like obesity, which led to the rational decision to treat it as a non-risk. If something bad comes around that is actually killing healthy adults, they would stay home.
- skybrian 2y agoThis seems like hindsight bias. Much less was understood about COVID back then and maybe you forgot how uncertain it was?
- kleton 2y agoI had recovered from it in about January 2020, so it was not one bit uncertain to me.
- skybrian 2y agoHow do you know it was COVID and not some other disease with similar symptoms? Also, why would you be confident that your experience generalizes? Getting to “not one bit uncertain” from what you could possibly have known then shows poor reasoning skills.
- 77pt77 2y agoJust study it, deploy whatever vaccine or mitigation procedure exists and let those that don't want it die. Just let them die. Do not want a ventilator because 80% of those placed in ventilators die? (humans are awful at reasoning) Great! Die. Enough with this nonsense.
- sincerecook 2y agoMaybe we could just try some more rational measures, like not forcing people who are at low risk to take an experimental treatment and weighing the severity of the of the threat against the freedoms we want to remove.
- tim333 2y agoWe're better with vaccines than in the Black Death days. And with flea killing. The UK government has already ordered five million doses of H5 vaccine just in case it come in handy.
- wumeow 2y agoIt’s interesting to compare this to the beginning of the Covid pandemic. We’ve been able to pretty effectively track H5N1 as it hops between animal populations and some humans, whereas Covid came out of nowhere.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gatkinso 2y agoTracking was available by Jan 2020 at the latest
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cogman10 2y agoThe difference is H5N1 infections have mostly happened in predictable and (importantly) rural places. That is, among people working directly with the animals impacted. Covid, on the other hand, had few precursors and hit in a population dense area (Wuhan). It does not help that for a fairly significant portion of the population covid was near symptomless. H5N1 has been much more severe when it hits humans. That said, it's not impossible that a variant of H5N1 that escapes will do so because it's more covid like in that it doesn't look or act much worse than a common flu in the first few infected.
- m3047 2y agoCovid, or its immediate analogues, were extensively studied in a lab in Wuhan for exactly this reason. When it became the "Covid" we all know and love then it was a thing and not a precursor. H5N1 today is a precursor. How would we know whether the strain which finally goes "viral" in humans is a product of "natural" washing or was done in a lab with humanized mouse cells?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tim333 2y ago
- bryanlarsen 2y agoIt's nice to see a balanced article on H5N1. A good one to send to the numerate who are panicking about H5N1.
- luuurker 2y agoAnd to those who ignore any warnings. After all, there's a middle ground between ignoring it completely and complete panic.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoAFAICT, at this stage, it's not really actionable for the general population, is it? H1N1 and H3N2 are much more dangerous today, so the general population would be much better served by articles talking about normal flu hygiene. Other than people who work with birds & cattle. It'd be really nice to see a campaign to get them immunized for the flu to reduce the risk of a co-infection that can hybridize H5N1.
- BenjiWiebe 2y agoI guess I did my part, then, without realizing it. I work on a dairy farm and I got my annual flu shot already. Here's hoping our cows don't get sick.
- chgs 2y agoH5N1 was a thing about 20 years ago. Why is today any different?
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- pm215 2y agoThe article's answer to this seems to be: 1) over the last 20 years H5N1 has spread from birds to minks and cows and in the last few months also to pigs 2) pigs in particular are hosts to both human and bird viruses, so they're a likely place for an H5N1 virus to do the reassortment with a human flu virus that might make it become human to human transmissible 3) but nonetheless, today is still not that much different -- the risk now is only a little elevated from the baseline ~5% risk of some pandemic flu breaking out that we might get in any year
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- floatrock 2y agoDon't forget the consolidation of big ag / factory farming conditions ever since the Butz/Nixon "get big or get out" era. Turns out cramming a lot of animals into ever tiner spaces creates more opportunities for pathogenic recombination and evolution.
- cogman10 2y agoFrom what I've read, the risk of H5N1 becoming human to human mainly comes from co-infection. That is, a person that is infected both by H5N1 and the flu. In that case, there is a risk that the H5N1 virus trades genetics with something like H1N1 which gives it the extra genetic oomph to spread it around. The fact that this outbreak is happening during typical cold/flu season is part of what has virologists on edge. Both hitting the right person wouldn't be great. The best defense here is for people to get their flu vaccine and avoid livestock if possible. If not possible, then it's reporting to the USDA/CDC if your livestock gets sick. Unfortunately, this all may translate into culling of herds which will translate into higher egg/beef prices to the average consumer.
- kens 2y agoThe article talks about how people's immune systems can get synced to the first flu they encounter. Coincidentally, the latest issue of Science has a paper finding that genetics is a more important factor than first exposure in determining which flu strain a person's immune system can fight best. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi2396 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi2396
- renewiltord 2y agoThe prediction markets are mostly illiquid and filled with degenerate gamblers trying to turn a 0.01 into a 1 so they overestimate tail chances because of the financial incentive. Because of the long lock-up period, you can't arbitrage it with better knowledge: i.e. a 7% can't be turned into a 1% because "by 2030" locks you up for a really long time for small value.
- m3047 2y ago> There are already H5N1 vaccines for both chickens and humans; pharma companies are working hard on cows. We need another term besides "vaccine" for the class of inoculations which don't prevent disease spread but rather lessen the (statistical) occurrence of severe illness. A lot of the focus on "vaccines" for chickens, cows, pigs etc. is on preventing severe illness: preventing serious illness still allows product to be delivered to market (hopefully post illness) whereas preventing disease spread requires a commitment to culling breakthroughs which interferes with profit! My general understanding that preventing serious illness, rather than transmission, is the objective with current influenza vaccines for humans as well. (As long as they're not noticeably sick, I'll keep on hugging my chickens as a source of generalized immunity to both coronaviruses and influenza.)
- checker659 2y agoPre-medication? Wait, here's a better one: speculative therapy Also make it invite only
- watermelon0 2y agoFrom Wikipedia: > Vaccines can be prophylactic (to prevent or alleviate the effects of a future infection by a natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (to fight a disease that has already occurred, such as cancer).
- retrac 2y agoEven among vaccines that are effective enough to halt a pathogen on a population level, it doesn't mean it guarantees immunity on an individual level. Some people vaccinated for smallpox or polio or measles caught them anyway back when they were endemic, but usually with milder disease due to the prior vaccination.
- Uw5ssYPc 2y ago[flagged]
- FergusArgyll 2y agoAs a complete aside: Scotts love of Metaculus over other prediction markets blinded him in this years Presidential race and then wrote the most copium filled article titled "Congrats To Polymarket, But I Still Think They Were Mispriced" [0] even though Metaculus has the worst calibration of any market [1] which should obviously be true because there's no money on the line (even fake money, see Manifold Markets, helps accuracy). [0] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/congrats-to-polymarket-but-i-still https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/congrats-to-polymarket-but-... [1] https://calibration.city/ https://calibration.city/
- y-c-o-m-b 2y agoI didn't see this mentioned in the article (or maybe I missed it), but what are the chances that it's already been circulating in the population (h2h) but causing very mild symptoms? It doesn't seem like we're testing for it unless a patient becomes hospitalized (and apparently even then it might take several ER trips before they decide to test). Are we relying on waste-water testing to determine community transmission then? I have a friend here in Oregon that came down with conjunctivitis for several days and then progressed to flu symptoms. It didn't hit him hard though and he recovered on his own just fine. I'm sure many pathogens can produce this same symptom progression, but it elevated my curiosity for sure. I see that Canadian teen who acquired H5N1 had a similar symptom progression and initially tested positive for flu strain A, but it wasn't until they did further testing specifically for H5N1 that it was discovered. I suspect these "last-resort" testing scenarios are quite common since most hospitals (particularly in the US) don't give enough of a damn to test further for cases that don't require over-night+ admission into the hospital or ICU.
- 404mm 2y agoThe article mentioned that we already have some limited supplies of a vaccine for H5N1. Just curious, what’s keeping us from adding it to the yearly flu shot mix ahead of time?
- tim333 2y agoIt'd be premature as by the time H5N1 went pandemic it would have mutated and hardly anyone is getting it just now.