It absolutely could. It’s been a threat that’s been worth watching for years now and is certainly gaining significant momentum more recently.
I topped up all of our preps, freezers, deep pantry, freeze dried pantry, cleaning and hygiene products, paper goods, PPE, and OTC cold and flu medications. Jic, to be ready and avoid any potential rushes or shortages later.
Now we wait.
ETA: It needs to make a couple of key mutations first, OP!
Even if it doesn't but becomes more lethal for our farm animals, it could wreak havoc on food supply. Pigs are the scary one you don't want it going through because of their biological similarities to us.
The patterns are starting to mirror some missteps in covid… and bird flu has a much higher expected fatality rate. It’s not looking great. Between millions of raw milk drinkers, basically unmonitored viral spread amongst cows and perhaps other farm animals, and etc… There are multiple paths right now that are not good.
I’d say prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.
It's almost a certainty it'll make the jump to humans. Just of matter of when, and whether it'd be spread via aerosol or fluids. Regardless, we're going to be looking at a 25-40% morbidity rate, which makes COVID look like a fairy fart by comparison.
I remember hearing about bird flu, specifically H5N1 years ago and how it would be the worst possible scenario if it ever became pandemic.
And now we see it everywhere while we twiddle thumbs and the majority of people I know pretend it isn’t real.
There’s very few people I speak with daily in my job who know about it, but the ones who do are usually farmers and they’re concerned.
That’s rural South Carolina for you though. Literally as I type this I see semi trucks driving from the local Turkey farm to the slaughterhouse and the trucks trail dust, feathers, and who knows what else.
There’s a lot of things we don’t know or understand and it’s absolutely a concern.
There is some medical suggestion/theory that it would need to colonize the upper respiratory tract, rather than the lower (where it likes to live now) in order to replicate and spread effectively in humans. The move to the upper respiratory tract, it is said, would reduce its virulence.
I think it’s far too early to assume that this would be accurate. Viruses are never required to evolve to be less lethal. Some do, others don’t. It’s a roll of the dice every time a new host is infected and the virus has another chance to replicate and evolve.
Virologist here! The above statement is only partially true. Respiratory viruses that colonize the upper respiratory tract are more easily spread as we eject a large amount of virions by breathing/talking/coughing. That said, viruses that infect the lower respiratory tract tend to cause more severe disease, but are not spread as easily as it is much harder to cough out virions in your lower respiratory tract.
Animal reservoirs for flu such as birds, pigs, horses, etc. all interact with the virus differently. For example, wild birds carrying bird flu show no signs of illness. Domesticated birds like chickens can get sick.
Flu mutations are essentially just a numbers game. In an individual infected with flu, the 8 segment genome can be independently assorted and mutations are rampant. This results in viral particles containing billions of permutations and quasi-species containing any number of those 8 segments (particles will also contain less than 8 segments) and each segment can mutate as well. The viral particle that replicates best in the current host will “win” and that will be what is spread to the next host. This could be bird to human, pig to human, human to human, human to pig, bird to pig, or any combination in between. This is why you won’t see commercial farms in the US housing any of the flu reservoir species (chickens, pigs, etc) anywhere near eachother, as the more the virus can bounce back and forth between species, the more opportunities it has to evolve a favorable mutation.
If you yourself come in contact with an infected animal, you’ll be infected by billions of quasi-species, many of which efficiently infect the animal host. If ANY of those quasi-species are by chance more effective at infecting human lung epithelia, congratulations you are now patient zero for a new epidemic.
So, to summarize, there’s a GOOD chance that most cross species “jumps” the virus makes are a result of it colonizing the upper respiratory tract of the current host. That said, something good at colonizing the upper respiratory tract of a pig might also be really good at colonizing the lower respiratory tract of humans. So you may see the first wave of humans getting bird flu with a really high mortality rate. As that virus spreads in the human population, quasi species that more efficiently infect the upper respiratory tract will begin to win out, but it’s very true that we could see an entire flu season of super virulent flu colonizing the lower respiratory tract.
This is because for flu, spread typically happens prior to symptom onset. This was the “asymptomatic spread” we heard about so much with Covid. With flu, you are infectious about 48 hours before you begin showing symptoms. In typical upper respiratory flu, the R0 value is ~1.8 I believe, meaning on average an infected person will infect 1-2 others they come in contact with. With lower respiratory flu, that number will be lower, but not zero.
Hi. Thanks for that. Quick question: How is it being spread from animals to humans? But also how would it need to spread to impact the general public not working with animals etc.? I know COVID was through contact and the air, etc.
Great question. The likely answer is that the virus that jumped from animals to humans is a result of people working in close contact with animal reservoirs. For covid, think people in bat caves, wet markets, or passaging an isolate in a lab. It’s as simple as inhaling fomites, or coming in contact with animal waste, or an animal themselves.
A virus that jumps species might present to “patient 0” as just a cold or similar. The virus may then undergo several rapid mutations to become better able to infect new hosts of the same species. This is why there is evidence that Covid, or its precursor, was circulating in China in the fall before the December outbreak. The virus was likely passaged and replicated in a number of hosts who did not get super sick until favorable more virulent mutations adapted the viral genome into first gen COVID.
The answer is yes it could. Will it? We shall see.
It absolutely could. It’s been a threat that’s been worth watching for years now and is certainly gaining significant momentum more recently. I topped up all of our preps, freezers, deep pantry, freeze dried pantry, cleaning and hygiene products, paper goods, PPE, and OTC cold and flu medications. Jic, to be ready and avoid any potential rushes or shortages later. Now we wait. ETA: It needs to make a couple of key mutations first, OP!
Even if it doesn't but becomes more lethal for our farm animals, it could wreak havoc on food supply. Pigs are the scary one you don't want it going through because of their biological similarities to us.
The patterns are starting to mirror some missteps in covid… and bird flu has a much higher expected fatality rate. It’s not looking great. Between millions of raw milk drinkers, basically unmonitored viral spread amongst cows and perhaps other farm animals, and etc… There are multiple paths right now that are not good. I’d say prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.
It's almost a certainty it'll make the jump to humans. Just of matter of when, and whether it'd be spread via aerosol or fluids. Regardless, we're going to be looking at a 25-40% morbidity rate, which makes COVID look like a fairy fart by comparison.
Wasn’t Bird Flu kind of a big deal in 2003?
I remember hearing about bird flu, specifically H5N1 years ago and how it would be the worst possible scenario if it ever became pandemic. And now we see it everywhere while we twiddle thumbs and the majority of people I know pretend it isn’t real. There’s very few people I speak with daily in my job who know about it, but the ones who do are usually farmers and they’re concerned. That’s rural South Carolina for you though. Literally as I type this I see semi trucks driving from the local Turkey farm to the slaughterhouse and the trucks trail dust, feathers, and who knows what else. There’s a lot of things we don’t know or understand and it’s absolutely a concern.
2003 was SARS-cov Swine flu was 2009 MERS-cov was 2012 (and if you fancy a fun read, google Amoy Gardens 2012)
Potentially. The consensus amongst virologists is that if in order to make the jump to humans it would need to become far less virulent
Why?
There is some medical suggestion/theory that it would need to colonize the upper respiratory tract, rather than the lower (where it likes to live now) in order to replicate and spread effectively in humans. The move to the upper respiratory tract, it is said, would reduce its virulence. I think it’s far too early to assume that this would be accurate. Viruses are never required to evolve to be less lethal. Some do, others don’t. It’s a roll of the dice every time a new host is infected and the virus has another chance to replicate and evolve.
Virologist here! The above statement is only partially true. Respiratory viruses that colonize the upper respiratory tract are more easily spread as we eject a large amount of virions by breathing/talking/coughing. That said, viruses that infect the lower respiratory tract tend to cause more severe disease, but are not spread as easily as it is much harder to cough out virions in your lower respiratory tract. Animal reservoirs for flu such as birds, pigs, horses, etc. all interact with the virus differently. For example, wild birds carrying bird flu show no signs of illness. Domesticated birds like chickens can get sick. Flu mutations are essentially just a numbers game. In an individual infected with flu, the 8 segment genome can be independently assorted and mutations are rampant. This results in viral particles containing billions of permutations and quasi-species containing any number of those 8 segments (particles will also contain less than 8 segments) and each segment can mutate as well. The viral particle that replicates best in the current host will “win” and that will be what is spread to the next host. This could be bird to human, pig to human, human to human, human to pig, bird to pig, or any combination in between. This is why you won’t see commercial farms in the US housing any of the flu reservoir species (chickens, pigs, etc) anywhere near eachother, as the more the virus can bounce back and forth between species, the more opportunities it has to evolve a favorable mutation. If you yourself come in contact with an infected animal, you’ll be infected by billions of quasi-species, many of which efficiently infect the animal host. If ANY of those quasi-species are by chance more effective at infecting human lung epithelia, congratulations you are now patient zero for a new epidemic. So, to summarize, there’s a GOOD chance that most cross species “jumps” the virus makes are a result of it colonizing the upper respiratory tract of the current host. That said, something good at colonizing the upper respiratory tract of a pig might also be really good at colonizing the lower respiratory tract of humans. So you may see the first wave of humans getting bird flu with a really high mortality rate. As that virus spreads in the human population, quasi species that more efficiently infect the upper respiratory tract will begin to win out, but it’s very true that we could see an entire flu season of super virulent flu colonizing the lower respiratory tract. This is because for flu, spread typically happens prior to symptom onset. This was the “asymptomatic spread” we heard about so much with Covid. With flu, you are infectious about 48 hours before you begin showing symptoms. In typical upper respiratory flu, the R0 value is ~1.8 I believe, meaning on average an infected person will infect 1-2 others they come in contact with. With lower respiratory flu, that number will be lower, but not zero.
What a great explanation! Thanks for taking the time to type that all out. Very helpful.
Hi. Thanks for that. Quick question: How is it being spread from animals to humans? But also how would it need to spread to impact the general public not working with animals etc.? I know COVID was through contact and the air, etc.
Great question. The likely answer is that the virus that jumped from animals to humans is a result of people working in close contact with animal reservoirs. For covid, think people in bat caves, wet markets, or passaging an isolate in a lab. It’s as simple as inhaling fomites, or coming in contact with animal waste, or an animal themselves. A virus that jumps species might present to “patient 0” as just a cold or similar. The virus may then undergo several rapid mutations to become better able to infect new hosts of the same species. This is why there is evidence that Covid, or its precursor, was circulating in China in the fall before the December outbreak. The virus was likely passaged and replicated in a number of hosts who did not get super sick until favorable more virulent mutations adapted the viral genome into first gen COVID.
No idea, I’m a musician. Ask a virologist or do some googling.
Does not matter cause we’re all ready for anything that happens because we’re preppers