Nothing like a nice pandemic in the year of Olympic Games. Let's thrown in a revolt in Tibet and we ave a really interesting summer!

Chinese officials just acknowledged that they have the 5th bird flu outbreak. They already ordered to kill a few hundred birds as precaution. If the virus can mutate and transfer to humans, we can have a nice reduction i population and a stop at the Chinese economic revolution...

Syzygys if the virus mutates to jump from human to human we are have bigger things to worry about than the chinese economie. The moment bird flu can jump human to human it will jump straight to the highest ranking on the WHO skale and we will have a world wide pandemic on our hands.

Economic collaps, mass quarteen, total shut down of schools, hospital A&E and GP's(although these 2 are just procidural), probable death toll of at least 10% of population

I know. The previous outbreak killed only 235 people but the economic loss was way more serious...

The economic loss was serious because some lunatic ordered the destruction of millions of birds suspected of having bird flu. Who even believes a word that comes from Chinese health authorities, anyway?

Dammit, sometimes I really believe that the Chinese have a bomb surrounded by tons of depleted uranium and tons of zinc. Maybe they have it on U.S. soil, as I would not count on the U.S. government to find something like that if it was listed on Google maps as "Big Freaking Chinese Atom Bomb Doomsday Machine." They're more worried that I might have pornography on my hard drive featuring something really interesting.

What else would explain the way the U.S. government sucks up to them?

The economic loss was pretty decent in Canada, where no birds were destroyed. Remember, they even had to hold a big concert just to get business and trust back...

Syzygys the economic losses have been huge but no where NEAR what they will be if it does become a flu pandemic. Thats why so many birds have been slaughted because of the potential problems if they arent.

Whats worse is this flu kills chicken eggs and that is a really scary propersition, thankfully we are yet to see it transmit easerlly from human to human but if it infects someone who already has the current flu and mutates were fucked.

Even if you just look at it economically so far the bird flu has only impacted on the poltry buiness but if we look at the economic costs of SARS (and pandemic flu would be MUCH MUCH worse, SARS would be concidered a mild cold compared to flu) they were enormouse. Stock market crashes because the employees wernt working either because they were infected or because they feared infection. Health proffessionals becomeing infected (which isnt just me being worried about myself BTW, health practisioners come in contact with the imune compromised there by spreading it further), the total colaps of the economie that would take YEARS to recover if it ever did rise to the same levels.

If we look at the human costs its MUCH worse, a 10% death toll is probably a conservitive estimate so we are looking at a death toll to rival WW2 and an economic toll to rivel the great depression coupled with the increased debt people have now and treatments only lasting for about a week for essential services (not even that if they have to start using them on the public service as well as health proffessionals)

We are in agreement, but thanks for the info...

[QUOTE=MetaKron;1786458]The economic loss was serious because some lunatic ordered the destruction of millions of birds suspected of having bird flu. Who even believes a word that comes from Chinese health authorities, anyway?

Dammit, sometimes I really believe that the Chinese have a bomb surrounded by tons of depleted uranium and tons of zinc. Maybe they have it on U.S. soil, as I would not count on the U.S. government to find something like that if it was listed on Google maps as "Big Freaking Chinese Atom Bomb Doomsday Machine." They're more worried that I might have pornography on my hard drive featuring something really interesting.

What else would explain the way the U.S. government sucks up to them

Money

The economic loss was serious because some lunatic ordered the destruction of millions of birds suspected of having bird flu. Who even believes a word that comes from Chinese health authorities, anyway?

Dammit, sometimes I really believe that the Chinese have a bomb surrounded by tons of depleted uranium and tons of zinc. Maybe they have it on U.S. soil, as I would not count on the U.S. government to find something like that if it was listed on Google maps as "Big Freaking Chinese Atom Bomb Doomsday Machine." They're more worried that I might have pornography on my hard drive featuring something really interesting.

What else would explain the way the U.S. government sucks up to them?


As much as i agree with the incopitance of the US goverment (although this has been infulanced by the focus given to them by the US citizans) but your being well and truly to blaiza about the effects if they HADNT slaughted the amount of poltry that they didnt. For one thing if an infected chicken was sold in Australia it wouldnt matter to much because its a) dead and b) going to be cooked all the way through (we are obsed with salmonala poising which requires chicken to be cooked to well done levels which does kill the bird flu virus) but in china and asia these food standeds arent to the same level. More danorious are people living in close contact with infected poltery.

The flu we see in the world now is quite mild but a pandemic flu (with the adition of killing chicken eggs) is VERY dangous than you seem to imagin.

Feel free to search for my posts on this issue (im not going to requote them all here)

As much as i agree with the incopitance of the US goverment (although this has been infulanced by the focus given to them by the US citizans) but your being well and truly to blaiza about the effects if they HADNT slaughted the amount of poltry that they didnt. For one thing if an infected chicken was sold in Australia it wouldnt matter to much because its a) dead and b) going to be cooked all the way through (we are obsed with salmonala poising which requires chicken to be cooked to well done levels which does kill the bird flu virus) but in china and asia these food standeds arent to the same level. More danorious are people living in close contact with infected poltery.

The flu we see in the world now is quite mild but a pandemic flu (with the adition of killing chicken eggs) is VERY dangous than you seem to imagin.

Feel free to search for my posts on this issue (im not going to requote them all here)



so does that mean we can actually eat chickens with the bird flu virus, if we cook them very well!?

so does that mean we can actually eat chickens with the bird flu virus, if we cook them very well!?Absolutely. In the West, the risk of bird flu is from live birds. You don't have to go out of your way to overcook them. Just normal "done" as opposed to "rare."

Syzygys if the virus mutates to jump from human to human we are have bigger things to worry about than the chinese economie. The moment bird flu can jump human to human it will jump straight to the highest ranking on the WHO skale and we will have a world wide pandemic on our hands.

Economic collaps, mass quarteen, total shut down of schools, hospital A&E and GP's(although these 2 are just procidural), probable death toll of at least 10% of population

Mutating viruses, economic collapse, mass quarteen, shutting down, 10% pop. loss...??? That's some serious shizz isn't it? Everyone would get weakened by some loss or another. Could any good come out of it?

Less polution...

less overpopulation to be harsh?

An increase in shares for funeral parlors?

LA as FR said your safe in the west eating chicken, the dangor comes mainly from wild birds in the developed world, being around live infected popltry and of course being near someone who is infected

I would say the danger comes when it starts to jump from humans to humans. I think that already happened in Canada, right?

as far as i know there have been no CONFERMED cases of human to human or mamal to mamal (which is almost as dangorious) transfers

Syzygys if the virus mutates to jump from human to human we are have bigger things to worry about than the chinese economie. The moment bird flu can jump human to human it will jump straight to the highest ranking on the WHO skale and we will have a world wide pandemic on our hands.

Economic collaps, mass quarteen, total shut down of schools, hospital A&E and GP's(although these 2 are just procidural), probable death toll of at least 10% of population


Even the worst predictions I have seen from relevant authorities or scientists have never been close to being that bad. I think you're over-stating things somewhat.

In fact, I just read an article in Science the other week that reported that leading virologists now think that there is less chance than originally thought that H5N1 will be able to acquire human to human transfer.

HR im not overstating, actually im understating if anything (especially in the mortality rates). I didnt even go into the morbitity rates through the health sector and emergency services which have the potential to cause more deaths because they arnt avialable to respond to other incidence.

Think about what would happen if we had a major bush fire with a fair percentage of the emergency services laid out with the flu?

I am simply quoting statistics and infomation given in my sociology and epidemology class at uni (including infomation from the WHO and the heath departments policy infomation)

HR im not overstating….

I say you are.


actually im understating if anything (especially in the mortality rates).

Nonsense. No one (who knows what they are talking about) has ever suggested that H5N1 would produce a “…probable death toll of at least 10% of population” (as you state). Please feel free to substantiate with a reference if you still disagree. I’ll even give you a head start:

W.H.O. - Avian influenza
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/index.html

C.D.C. - Avian influenza
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/index.htm

Pandemic Flu.gov
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/index.html

For instance, in the USA the Spanish Flu of 1918 had a mortality rate of 2.5% (according to the WHO). And note that's the mortality rate, not deaths as a percentage of population (which would, of course, be a much lower % and not anywhere remotely near 10%). I’ve seen no report that suggests that H5N1 will have a higher virulence or mortality than the H1N1 strain of 1918. Granted, people can travel and lot further and quicker than in 1918 which will make containing a ‘flu pandemic difficult. But modern communications will enable a world-wide response in a fashion that was not possible in 1918. Furthermore, modern antiviral drugs and other healthcare measures are available that did not exist in 1918.

ok lets look at the spanish flu



The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was an influenza pandemic that started in the United States, appeared in West Africa and France and then spread to nearly every part of the globe. It was caused by an unusually severe and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Many of its victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients.

The Spanish flu pandemic came in three waves[1] lasting from March 1918 to June 1920,[2] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. While older estimates put the number of killed at 40–50 million people, current estimates are that 50 million to 100 million people worldwide died, possibly more than that taken by the Black Death, and higher than the number killed in World War I.[3] This extraordinary toll resulted from the extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms.

The disease was first observed at Fort Riley, Kansas, United States, on March 4, 1918,[4] and Queens, New York, on March 11, 1918. In August 1918, a more virulent strain appeared simultaneously in Brest, France, in West Africa at Freetown, Sierra Leone, and in the U.S. at Boston, Massachusetts. The Allies of World War I came to call it the Spanish Flu, primarily because the pandemic received greater press attention after it moved from France to Spain in November 1918. Spain was not involved in the war and had not imposed wartime censorship.[5]

Scientists have used tissue samples from frozen victims to reproduce the virus for study. Given the strain's extreme virulence there has been controversy regarding the wisdom of such research. Among the conclusions of this research is that the virus kills via a cytokine storm, which explains its unusually severe nature and the unusual age profile of its victims (the virus caused an overreaction of the body's immune system - strong immune systems (ie young adults) ravaged the body, while weaker immune systems (ie children & middle age adults) caused less morbidity and mortality).



The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is estimated at 2.5 to 5% of the human population, with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent. Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks (in contrast, AIDS killed 25 million in its first 25 years). Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people[7] while current estimates say 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed.[8] This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed more people than the Black Death.[9]

An estimated 7 million died in India, about 2.78% of India's population at the time. In the Indian Army, almost 22% of troops who caught the disease died of it[citation needed]. In the U.S., about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died. In Britain as many as 250,000 died; in France more than 400,000. In Canada approximately 50,000 died. Entire villages perished in Alaska and southern Africa. In Australia an estimated 12,000 people died and in the Fiji Islands, 14% of the population died during only two weeks, and in Western Samoa 22%.

This huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms.[7] Indeed, symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, "One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred."[8] The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.[6]

The unusually severe disease killed between 2 and 20% of those infected, as opposed to the more usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%.[6][8] Another unusual feature of this pandemic was that it mostly killed young adults, with 99% of pandemic influenza deaths occurring in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old.[10] This is unusual since influenza is normally most deadly to the very young (under age 2) and the very old (over age 70).


[edit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

5% of world population WITHOUT the fact that world populations are MUCH more transitory now and a person infected in one part of the world now can be in another the same day

Secondly it is those with a HEALTHY imune system that are most at risk in the spanish flu rather than the imune comprimised we have a bigger problem

Further more this is just the DIRECT mortality rate and doesnt take into account any indirect deaths resulting from it be the cause economic, secondry infections ect.

Also we have a large population (especially in africa) who have comprimised imune systems and are at risk from a cold let alone the flu

Further more we wont have an ability to offer them ANY vacine because it kills chicken eggs

Then there is civil unrest, stavation, inability to get vital (unrelated) health services, goverment shutdowns ect

Im sorry but even if the direct mortality rate is lower the REAL death toll caused by the upheavle has the potentual to be MUCH MUCH higher

Stop worrying ! Ask any god-fearing, bible-reading person and the will tell you that mutations don't happen. All that atheistic Darwinism is pure nonsense. If god did not make a virus to attack man, there is no way the avian flu can jump to man.

Why must people bring religion into everything ?

current bird flu cannot pass from human to human

That is good to hear but still scared the shit out of everyone in Canada. Also, why did they close down the schools in HK if there is no human-human jump???

Why the fuck did China get the olypmics? China sucks. Bad on human rights, bad on the environment, bad athletes, obnoxious, racist, communist.... They're such a terrible people.

current bird flu cannot pass from human to human

Not yet.