Posted on 04/14/2013 4:41:05 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Around the world, scientists are now beginning to examine samples of the virus with a significant question in mind: Could this strain of the disease cause a global pandemic?
This international network of scientists keeps constant watch for good reason.
In 1918 and 1919, a flu pandemic killed between 20 million and 40 million people, more than the total death toll of World War I, more in a year than the Black Death of 1347 to 1351. More recently, an H1N1 swine flu pandemic was blamed for more than 284,500 human deaths worldwide between April 2009 and August 2010.
So far, the signs are that this is a localized outbreak. The number of cases is low and the virus -- an H7N9 strain -- does not appear to be capable of jumping from one person to another.
But each case represents a chance for the virus to mutate into one that is highly infectious in humans. And it is an unusual strain -- normally avian diseases make birds sick first, giving an early warning sign, but this one does not.
More than 1,000 dead ducks have been fished out of a river Sichuan, China. The discovery comes as the country deals with anger over the dumping of over 16,000 pigs elsewhere in China. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Scientists have established it is from an "avian reservoir" but still don't know the precise source. Chinese officials have dismissed suggestions of a connection with the large number of dead pigs and other animals found recently in rivers.
(Excerpt) Read more at behindthewall.nbcnews.com ...
China Said to Invite Four Flu Experts as Disease Outbreak Widens
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-14/china-said-to-invite-four-flu-experts-as-disease-outbreak-widens.html
Don’t look over, look here, Act II.
Wishful thinking going back long before the H1H1 flu that was supposed to be extremely widespread and deadly and was NOTHING.
I am beginning to understand that it is not about warning us to a possible pandemic, but they are hoping for one to depopulate the earth. It is just wishful thinking on their part. Of course they expect that their inoculations and technology will save them from being part of the 60% who dies, but it is purely wishful thinking on their part.
bring
I read this same article every year.
I HATE MEMORY LOST
It probably is wishful thinking ... the ultimate ZPG ... but I do hope somebody has enough self-interest or smarts to keep an eye on this. Watch the incredibly sad movie “1918” (Horton Foote, writer and director) if you want to know what a serious flu outbreak is like.
The global pandemic groupies will be ecstatic.
So might this another ploy to put tax dollars into the pockets of special interest groups like AGW alarmists, wind machine farms, California high-speed train?
Idiotic vermin. This is 2007 redux and carrying on the hoax..
Ground Hog Day...
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
A-GAIN!!???
IIRC we went through this overhyped panic some years ago and nothing came of it. Are we being "prepared" for round 2?
Or read The Great Influenza by John M Barry
Interesting.
In the wild interesting.
My mother had memories of the 1918 pandemic, as she was born in 1912. She started school a year late because all of the schools had to be closed to lessen the chance of spreading the disease. (Maybe there was also a shortage of teachers at that point....)
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