Recombinomics has four new H5N1 articles for today, plus one from yesterday, all of which are worth reading.
Recombinomics articles
My personal conclusion from these articles:
1. Very poor sample collection means we have no idea how many cases there are in Indonesia.
2. That we are at stage 5 looks very likely, but we are not at stage 6.
3. It is spreading more easily from birds to humans, including casual contact. Eating an infected bird is not necessary.
4. The general population currently includes many infected people. If it is now capable of sustained human to human transmission, we will know soon, perhaps within a week.
If you look at the Map on the site. It shows 2 international airports within the outbreak zone. In fact one of the sick worked at the airport. This virus is one plane trip away. The cases are also exploding from the reports. It looks like clusters within clusters are occurring. And the WHO and Indonesia government are powerless to stop the spread. Hopefully this evolution path of the virus will burn itself out but I am very worried. This is just the start of the winter months in the area.