[Caramelgal]

Mutation is neutral, that means that 50% will be more deadly and 50% less deadly, but at a mutation rate of 1.5/10,000 per per nucleotide per infectious cycle, 50% of these mutation will be more deadly. And, since this virus has already mutated to become extremely deadly (i.e., 1918), the possibility of this super, possibly human-engineered, 4-virus combination (strain) to become extremely deadly again is greater than 0. How much greater, we don’t know with current information.

No offense intended but I doubt your assumption regarding mutation is quite all that simple (and I’d like to see a source for it). And it’s way too early to know that this flu is “extremely deadly (i.e., 1918)” or that it is “human-engineered”.

First of all flu viruses mutate all the time without any human engineering. That’s why a new flu shot is developed each year for the strain predicted to be the predominate one.

And the mutations mean, if that mutation results in human to human transmission, that a human host may be more vulnerable to catching the flu but does not necessarily equate with the deadliness of that strain over previous ones. It that was the case we’d be extinct as a species by now.

And the avian and swine to human disease vectors are nothing new. That one could make an avian to swine to human vector is not all that surprising.

Secondly, engineering a deadly flu is not as easy as it sounds. And there are more effective biological warfare diseases than the flu.

With all that said, this certainly bares watching. I am concerned that this strain seems so far to infect the younger and healthier like the 1918 strain and is breaking during a time of year not the typical flu season. But what is unknown at this time is if all the reported deaths in Mexico are from this flu strain, or if the deaths were from secondary infections and or as a result of poor or non-existent medical care as so far the few confirmed cases in the US have not resulted in any deaths.

Until more is known, I’m keeping my tinfoil handy but only for wrapping leftovers.

[bgill]

this strain seems so far to infect the younger and healthier

Why do you think this is? Perhaps it's striking the working ages who tend to be out in public areas and have more person to person contact. I suspect we'll start seeing it move into the elderly and children before too long.

[BagCamAddict]

Unfortunately, with a mortality rate of 2% - 7% (depending on what numbers you use/believe), we haven’t had enough cases in the US to even know if it is more or less or equally as deadly here. We have to have 1 death in 14 cases at a 7% mortality rate, up to 1 death in 50 cases at a 2% mortality rate. So 8 cases is not enough of a sample to draw any conclusion about its “deadliness” here in the US.

We need to take all appropriate precautions, just in case, but we don’t have enough information or data yet to make many conclusions.