Just What We Need!

Get your science fix here: research, quackery, activism and all the rest
Post Reply
User avatar
Gentleman Jim
Catbabel
Posts: 634
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 9:38 pm

Just What We Need!

Post by Gentleman Jim » Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:35 am

Flu virus with 'pandemic potential' found in China
A new strain of flu that has the potential to become a pandemic has been identified in China by scientists.

It emerged recently and is carried by pigs, but can infect humans, they say.

The researchers are concerned that it could mutate further so that it can spread easily from person to person, and trigger a global outbreak.

While it is not an immediate problem, they say, it has "all the hallmarks" of being highly adapted to infect humans and needs close monitoring.

As it's new, people could have little or no immunity to the virus.

The scientists write in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that measures to control the virus in pigs, and the close monitoring of swine industry workers, should be swiftly implemented.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53218704
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8241
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Just What We Need!

Post by shpalman » Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:12 am

Gentleman Jim wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:35 am
Flu virus with 'pandemic potential' found in China
A new strain of flu that has the potential to become a pandemic has been identified in China by scientists.

It emerged recently and is carried by pigs, but can infect humans, they say.

The researchers are concerned that it could mutate further so that it can spread easily from person to person, and trigger a global outbreak.

While it is not an immediate problem, they say, it has "all the hallmarks" of being highly adapted to infect humans and needs close monitoring.

As it's new, people could have little or no immunity to the virus.

The scientists write in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that measures to control the virus in pigs, and the close monitoring of swine industry workers, should be swiftly implemented.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53218704
'flu researchers feeling a bit left out by all the attention the coronavirus is getting?

It's a new strain of H1N1 which has already infected 10% of industry’s workers in China while "4.4% of the general population also appeared to have been exposed".

The number of lab-confirmed deaths reported to the WHO is 18,449 from the 2009 swine 'flu pandemic. There may have been up to about half a million deaths but that's inline with normal seasonal 'flu. COVID is at more than half a million already and a lot of those are actual "lab-confirmed".

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... o-oranges/

If people continue with habits of hand washing, face covering, and self isolating when symptomatic, that should work against 'flu too anyway.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Just What We Need!

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:22 am

Next time someone asks me why I don't eat meat, I'm going to try the "pandemic" answer rather than the "climate", "biodiversity", "global food security" or "animal welfare" answers.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Little waster
After Pie
Posts: 2385
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2019 12:35 am
Location: About 1 inch behind my eyes

Re: Just What We Need!

Post by Little waster » Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:23 am

Does that mean I've now got free reign to have a go at Westerners for their disgusting dietary habits; eating filthy animals like pigs and making jokes like one of the symptoms is you get some crackling in your ear and making racist comments about the Danes?.

Copenhagen, Coffinhagen more like 'arf 'arf.
This place is not a place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here, nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

AMS
Snowbonk
Posts: 466
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:14 pm

Re: Just What We Need!

Post by AMS » Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:30 am

I don't want to trivialise it, but if 4.4% of the population (China's?) have already been exposed before it was identified, it sounds less scary than Covid-19.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: Just What We Need!

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:59 am

Little waster wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:23 am
Does that mean I've now got free reign to have a go at Westerners for their disgusting dietary habits; eating filthy animals like pigs and making jokes like one of the symptoms is you get some crackling in your ear and making racist comments about the Danes?.

Copenhagen, Coffinhagen more like 'arf 'arf.
Definitely, I've been doing it for years ;) (Except for the racism - some of my best friends are Danes)

It does tend to annoy people a bit, though.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

Post Reply