Here’s a group trying to recreate the Passenger Pigeon:
https://reviverestore.org/about-the-passenger-pigeon/
1918 Spanish Flu has been reconstructed:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/1918flupandemic.htm
IIRC “Mother Abigail” who once posted here said that cytokine storms were a factor in the lethality of that flu. Hybrid human-animal flus can provoke cytokine storms and 1918 was an H1N1 virus mixed with avian flu.
Cytokine storms may also have played a role in the lethality of the original Covid strain. It can cause multiple organ failure and death.
“Meanwhile if they don’t get on top of Monkey Pox with serious contact tracing, that could also become endemic, and it should not as it spreads less easily.”
Smallpox vaccines are supposedly effective against Monkey Pox. Unless we quit routinely vaxxing for smallpox there shouldn’t be a lot of risk in this country.
We stopped vaccinating for smallpox in 1972. It was declared to be eradicated from the Earth in 1980, IIRC.
The first known human monkeypox cases showed up in Africa in the 1970s, and at first occurred mainly in small children. As the the children who had never been vaccinated aged up, monkeypox began to be seen in older children, then teens, then adults.
I’m not all that worried about monkeypox becoming a big thing outside the gay population. It’s not all that easy to catch.
Re your #55, I’ve read about the Kansas theory, but didn’t know about the Canada one. It actually makes more sense. Thanks for cluing me in!