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Because we want it to hit us harder. We can call it extra precautions or maybe China cares less, put it under whatever label you want. It is incredibly low risk
by elmerfud 2y ago
Because we want it to hit us harder. We can call it extra precautions or maybe China cares less, put it under whatever label you want. It is incredibly low risk for the avian flu to be transferred through eggs to humans. Also the avian flu is impact on humans once you get it is generally very low risk as well.
There are always exceptions to both of these and people panic over the exceptions rather than accepting some amount of risk. We also seem to have given up on the idea of people making individual choices about risk profiles and instead default everyone into the category of "the government is here to save you". China, doesn't have this same outlook.
- nico 2y agoSo who is raising the prices? And why? Is the govt telling the egg companies to kill their chickens, or do something in particular that makes it harder for them to produce eggs? Or is it grocery stores preemptively raising prices assuming egg supply is going to be short soon?
- legitster 2y ago> Is the govt telling the egg companies to kill their chickens, or do something in particular that makes it harder for them to produce eggs? Yes! That's literally the entire cause of the egg shortage. Over 100 million birds have been slaughtered in the US so far to curtail the outbreak.
- jeffbee 2y agoOK but 20 million of those died of the disease itself. What's your counterfactual for how many would have died without the culling? You seem to be implying that it would be fewer, but that's not obviously correct.
- legitster 2y agoI don't understand your point anymore. Egg prices are up because we lost somewhere between 1/5 and 1/4 of our egg laying birds in the last year, and it takes a while to breed that many replacement birds. I have no idea what argument you are trying to make about the avian flu.
- jeffbee 2y agoI'm trying to figure out why the excursion in our market prices is so much greater than that in China when, as you mention in another comment, this disease has hit other countries as well.
- legitster 2y agoThe USDA orders much more expansive precautionary slaughtering programs than in other countries. Each country also subsidizes their agriculture in different ways so they tend to respond to price shocks differently.
- jeffbee 2y agoThe disease itself has killed tens of millions of hens and farmers are slaughtering their flocks to stop it from spreading. I don't see your point about risk appetite under these circumstances.
- elmerfud 2y agoThe disease is harmful to the birds but is of relatively low risk to almost no risk to humans. Especially with a properly cooked egg. That's the risk category I'm talking about. Because the amount of birds that died to the disease is insignificant to the amount ordered killed by the government to try and control the spread.