Avian Bird Flu is a form of influenza that can have very high mortality rates in humans but at this date has not staged a major "break-out" from its natural reservoir in wild birds (predominantly waterfowl like ducks).
Leaving out all politics, a topic that is covered amply in other places and likely to be mentioned in the comments vis-a-vis timing, the scenario that is usually discussed is the break-out occurring in small, multi-species farms where ducks and chickens and pigs and a cow and human's are in intimate contact for many hours a day. There are many of those kinds of farm in east and southeast Asia.
What we "know" now
The current strain of bird flu floating around North America can infect cattle.
The current strain appears to be highly lethal to cats.
Antibodies to strains of flu that infected humans in the recent past offer partial protection against bird flu.
About that last point
Whether due to God or evolution or the limitations of the synthesis of very large proteins in our bodies, our antibodies are "modular".
To provide you with a mental model, visualize a basketball with pebbling, seams and the maker's logo impressed or molded onto its outer surface. That would be the target organism. Antibodies are like clay-moldings of the surface...keys looking for their locks. When they find "a match" they click-in like legos toys. One or two antibodies might slow down the basketball but they depend on gang-tackling to totally neutralize it.
The beauty of this system is that when a disease-causing virus or bacteria mutates, only PARTS of it change and most of the surface is still recognizable to most of the antibodies as "BAD!" and they try to kill it.
The lymph nodes recognize it as an invader and they ramp-up production of antibodies associated with the previous challenge, most of which will have activity against the new invader.
Vax or natural?
The academic paper that I base the statement about the probability of cross-over protection looked specifically at vaccinations for seasonal flu. Let me quote:
A small frequency of CD4 T cells specific for subtype H5N1 was detected in several persons at baseline, and seasonal vaccine administration enhanced the frequency of such reactive CD4 T cells. We also observed that seasonal vaccination is able to raise neutralizing immunity against influenza (H5N1) in a large number of donors.
If you are one of those people who frequently swim in Petri dishes like day-cares, elementary schools, bus stations, barracks, restaurants or Emergency Rooms then it is likely that you have been challenged with enough seasonal flu strains that you will have some "natural" immunity to Avian Flu.
If you are a grumpy curmudgeon who avoids humans in all forms, it is likely that you do not.
A final note
During the Covid event, some epidemiologists speculated that the very wide range of severity might be due to the size of the initial dose.
Their reasoning was that if you received a small initial dose, like a single droplet of saliva or snot from a sneeze 60 feet away, then it took Covid time to ramp up its numbers and find the tissues it most preferred. That gave your body's immune system time to start ramping up production of antibodies. If, on the other hand, you took a sneeze right to the face then you body never had a chance to get out-in-front of the disease and you were more likely to have severe symptoms.
A point that is hiding in all of that is that the person swimming in the Petri dish is getting exposed to EVERYTHING and can develop immunity without ever being symptomatic as long as he/she does not have a compromised immune system.
Kudo's for "going there".
ReplyDeleteThough I think he's a charlatan, I've complimented a local preacher the same - We should not shy away from talking about the difficult topics of our day and time. We need to do it in a respectful and polite manner however, which seems to be the weak link.
Wait.What? Say that last part again - slowly? If you are saying that gestation time varies proportionally to the proximity or the initial infection size… then you have no idea how these bugs propagate.
ReplyDeleteBeing an outhouse mathematician, Joe…you should have known the Covid panic was a scam within 72 hours of it breaking. To predict mortality numbers in a given sample size, all we need is the coefficients for contagion and mortality…the rest is a straightforward grade 11 exponential function that will be accurate to within 3%, 19 times out of 20. Getting values for those coefficients is childishly easy… and yet they varied all over the place depending on how panicked and how liberal the sample size was. At no point during that entire panic did we ever see meaningful numbers either. I wonder if the political weaponization, and the ensuing grifts had anything to do with it?
😂
I am an old crank that carefully regulates his exposure to other humans, largely because I have no use for them. If you need to know the skinny on bug behaviour… you don’t listen to an epidemiologist. You go to an immunologist, a microbiologist or a histologist.
You can only trust the science if you can trust the scientist. Sadly, there is as much fake science as there is fake news. 19 out of 20 scientific studies confirm the views of the people that fund them.
Reread the last part slowly---he didn't say /gestation time/ varied by initial dose, but that /severity of symptoms/ varied.
DeleteThat may or may not be true, but he (at least implicitly) distinguished between the two.
I also implied that virus seem to have an affinity for certain organs or kinds of tissue. If a virus "liked" kidneys and it first landed in the nasal membranes several generations might pass before the kidney's were colonized at which time the reproductive rate or number of infective virus released would skyrocket.
DeleteMost aerosol-dispersed virus like cooler temperatures such as those found in nasal passages and throats. That was one of the historical notes that led many to suggest that Covid (which in earlier iterations had an affinity for lungs and caused pneumonia) would become more infective and less fatal. Reproductive rates and more efficient transmission mechanisms would favor the virus that was dialed in to thrive in the upper respiratory system.
A lung full of virus does not have the ability to launch virus laden sputum as effectively as virus living in nasal membranes and causing sneezes.
Oops - my bad, sorry all. My speed reading skills are falling off as I age - it's infuriating. You are correct that all bugs have preferred transmission vectors and points of entry - that IS rock solid science and we have known this for decades. The kidneys and lungs are popular targets in bug world.
DeleteAs for Covid lethality - yeah... it was a bad flu. It posed a genuine threat to the elderly and those with co-morbidities but was never a real threat to otherwise healthy people. The elderly, sick and otherwise compromised subjects are always at risk from flu. In point of fact, many viruses can go dormant for thousands of years. Back when I was dabbling in microbiology at school, there was real debate over whether viruses were actually living organisms or not. They may have settled that one since... but I wouldn't trust any of today's scientists or medicos to settle anything, one way or another...
The most infuriating part of the whole Covid debacle is we had the results from Diamond Princess by the end of April 2020. The results are solid enough they are still on reference sites: 712 of 3,711 infected (from being in close quarters) and a whole 14 deaths (all passengers, and all elderly). A 20% infection rate and 1.9% death rate for the elderly. Cruise ship passengers are famously 'newly wed or nearly dead (48% the elderly infected had existing medical issues)' and there were zero deaths in the crew made the governmental responses aftwards a farce.
DeleteYou beat me to it - I was going to refer to the Diamond Princess as an experiment on COVID behaviour. Isolated environment, so good evidence of just how serious it was to any but the elderly with co-morbidities.
DeleteDenninger on Avian Flu:
ReplyDeletehttps://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=251159
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Denninger on Turbo Cancer / Covid shots:
ReplyDeletehttps://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=251238
My mother, a school teacher for over 30 years, credited her relative immunity every year to the standard wave of flus and colds due to her exposure in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteNot a Dr.
ReplyDeleteDidn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express.
Did take Ivermectin to help combat my presumed (did not get a test) Covid infection. Helped the first time.
Twice more in the past 3 years I came down with URC (Upper Respiratory Crud) and Ivermectin knocked it out each time.
My ivermectin source: Tractor Supply.
My data source: Ann Barnhardt - https://www.barnhardt.biz/ivermectin/
She made no money off her information, ergo "Cui Bono?" does not indicate corruption on her part.
.GOV and .Pharma cannot say the same.
I have 2 grandsons 12 & 2 years old. They are here at our house 2 to 4 days each week. What comes around goes around in this family. I will not give up my time spent with my kids. So be it.
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you. Two grandkids, male and female--fraternal twins. 19 months old and we have them 4 days a week. It's a bit trying at our age (Lord, I never thought I'd say that...) but it is so worth it. No one cares for kids like family.
DeleteRegular exposure to pathogens strengthens your immune system...unless you have a disease that limits immune response. I've been a healthcare worker seeing ER patients for 45+ years. I have never had the flu and can go years without suffering an upper respiratory illness of any kind. Because I am regularly exposed to respiratory pathogens. The only one I actually worry about is Tuberculosis. Whether or not this new flu is a danger is unknown. What isn't an unknown is its usefulness as fear porn. To keep the masses scared and begging for those in power to DO SOMETHING.
ReplyDeletehttps://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=251239
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