H5N1 has been spreading worldwide since Qinghai June 2005.
There has been a steady, slow flow of human cases since then.
Last month we see the virus has picked up seasonal flu Human Binding site abilities.
Where are the human cases?
Is it possible that Govs have gotten hip to the fact that if they begin to release news of growing clusters, they are finished in the Global arena? Do they know something we don’t know? Are we seeing our worst suspicions being played out?
Is the first we hear of human cases going to be in our own backyard giving us virtually no time to “finish” our preps and pull the family in?
With all of our news hunting, gathering, analysis and discussions will we be blind-sided anyway?
Happy Thanksgiving.
probably so.
Goju-
I’ve thought about that many times. It is kinda of the, “you can plan for 1000 things, but the 1001 thing will happen.” I’m kinda incline to think this.
They study us as much as we study them.
Aridity of news is expected. Finish up preps.
No, I don’t think so…
I think the issue is that human expectation for events to happen in somewhat linear fashion. Natural events are not always linear.
I think the reporting of human cases of H5N1 has been relatively reasonable. A watched pot of water appears to take a long time to come to boil … even more so in the case of H5N1 where the “heat” applied to the pot (H5N1 virus mutation, exposure rates, seasonal factors and a lot of things we just don’t understand yet) varies significantly - and we don’t know how much “heat” is going into the pot, we can only count the bubbles at the surface (H5N1 Human cases).
So perhaps change your expectations about when/where/how severe and remain steadfast in preparing, and flexible relative to outcomes.
best,
Goju – at 11:26
Last month we see the virus has picked up seasonal flu Human Binding site abilities.
That can be a misperception, IMHO, because, if the virus has already infected 200+ people, what makes us think it could not bind to human receptor sites before? What is different is a study that suggested a few mutations that could be responsible in a number of cases.
If we accept the receptor binding theory, ie that the virus has to bind to human receptors to cause infection, how on earth did it cause all those infections if it wasn’t able to bind to human receptors?
Which means that the findings should be entirely expected.
We didn’t know which mutations might be responsible before. Now we know, a little.
Not that we like it, but it isn’t something so unexpected as to merit any change in our risk perception either, IMO.
If there are clusters growing in remote places like Nepal and India, where we see “mystery illnesses” affecting large “clusters” of people, along with deaths, if any of them are H5N1 then they indeed may hold back on openly sharing this information. If we have breakout clusters in remote regions, I think they’ll try to keep news of this quiet for as long as they can while they complete their activities to move to the next action level.
My worry is that the computer modeling they may be using might just work. They may receive confirmation from the first clusters on how the virus behaves and determine that their models are pretty good (they can then also make adjustments as needed). If the virus acts as their modeling suggests it will, then they may get confirmation about their expectations, and a good handle on how fast its spread will be. If the virus errupts into larger clusters in remote areas where the press is not present (or perhaps is not allowed) they may wait for a while to share this information with the world. They would think that waiting would be prudent, and the answers to the questions everyone will have might then be easier to give as a result of this further study.
If clusters errupt in large urban areas, though, there’s no real way that news can be kept quiet. It is all comes down to real estate: location, location, location.
I think that most of the news gatherers feel that there has been a concerted effort to centralize information about H5N1 outbreaks in many places such as Indonesia, and that consequently the news has been much slower than usual. Most concerning is the lack of follow-up for cases and suspect cases, and the silence from some areas that had reported significant “mystery” illnesses.
I think that overall, Goju, that the elevation of Margaret Chan to the head postition at WHO indicated that there would be a more “organized” and centralized approach to H5N1 forthcoming. Remember too that the U.S. may support this approach, as we did throw our 9 votes to Chan.
Goju – at 11:26 wrote:
Is it possible that Govs have gotten hip to the fact that if they begin to release news of growing clusters, they are finished in the Global arena? Do they know something we don’t know? Are we seeing our worst suspicions being played out?
Forbes.com
11.22.06, 12:00 AM ET
“I think there may have been previous clusters that might have gone unreported because of a lack of attention — they may have been misdiagnosed as other kinds of flu,…. H5N1?s genetic “leap” to human-to-human transmission — if it ever happens — will be much tougher than media reports have let on.”
- excerpt
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2006/11/22/hscout536220.html
Check the article I just posted to the News thread.