Coronavirus
Out of context: Reply #6328
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- yuekit0
An Even Deadlier Pandemic Could Soon Be Here
As the world is just beginning to recover from the devastation of Covid-19, it is facing the possibility of a pandemic of a far more deadly pathogen.
Bird flu — known more formally as avian influenza — has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears. This pathogen, especially the H5N1 strain, hasn’t often infected humans, but when it has, 56 percent of those known to have contracted it have died. Its inability to spread easily, if at all, from one person to another has kept it from causing a pandemic.
But things are changing. The virus, which has long caused outbreaks among poultry, is infecting more and more migratory birds, allowing it to spread more widely, even to various mammals, raising the risk that a new variant could spread to and among people.
Alarmingly, it was recently reported that a mutant H5N1 strain was not only infecting minks at a fur farm in Spain but also most likely spreading among them, unprecedented among mammals...
- How long before bird-kind become offended at the term and they have to change it?_niko
- Yeah, it's getting close. Some seals have died from H5N1 in Scotland. Imagine what 50% death rate will do to society. Book of Eli here we come.zardoz
- birds = seeds spread = flora dies off if all birds die off.shapesalad
- There's that, and birds are voracious consumers of pest insects.zardoz
- But does it give you 5g?robotinc
- Let's wait until an outbreak to work at vaccine.jagara