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Modelling Reveals Likely Spread of New H7N9 Avian Flu
ananyo writes "With Taiwan announcing the first case of H7N9 avian flu outside mainland China, researchers have revealed how the virus may spread in China — and beyond. The projections use risk maps developed for human infection by another, well-established avian flu — H5N1. Indeed, when human cases of H7N9 are overlaid on a risk map, they appear to fall within the highest risk areas for H5N1. The map suggests that high-risk areas for H7N9 might include Shandong province (where the first case was reported 23 April) and a belt extending around the Bohai sea to Liaoning province in the north. Though there has been no evidence of sustained human-to-human spread of H7N9 so far, researchers have analyzed airline passenger data for China. Eastern China — the epicenter of the current the H7N9 outbreak — is one of the world's busiest hubs for airline traffic. From the Nature story: 'A quarter of the global population outside of China lives within two hours of an airport with a direct flight from the outbreak regions, and 70% if a single connecting flight is included.'"
I have the sick leave for it, bring it on.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
That's nothing, wait until they can issue H7N9 Avian Flu from 3D printing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
With all the crying wolf lately it's a wonder we still see these articles. What happened to SARS, did all five victims of the "pandemic" die without passing it on? H1N1 caused some sniffles. Donald Rumsfeld made a killing with his quack medicine while GSK fleeced the Brits out of a healthy chunk of their health budget during the swine flu hoax. Every year there's a new fake pandemic.
Almost makes you hope the promised pandemic finally arrives to take out the idiots who keep pump-and-dumping their antiviral stocks.
$
It's probably because there are more mutagenic compounds floating around than in the past. The things that cause genetic damage (e.g. cancer) and whatnot in animals can accelerate mutation in single cell organisms, but with their short life cycles and higher populations, it increases the likelihood of something positive being blundered into (and then thriving).
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
for the mix of avian and swine flu. Beware, the Flying Pig Flu!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
something like the dreadded "mammalian disease" ?
On the upside, I can finally put my Y2K bunker to use.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I just really do not like Wolf. He is a complete waste of a human being and a super sucky "news person".
Don't you just love the way he pretends to be a serious journalist while he's engaging in shameless ratings grabs, as if keeping a stoic face somehow makes his network's panic-mongering and opportunistic exploitation of every event-of-the-moment into responsible reporting?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
The education standard on slashdot is falling.
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains..."
Love the title: Modelling Reveals Likely Spread of New H7N9 Avian Flu
Soo...those of us not in the modelling profession are safe, then? :P
Also, I wonder exactly what else those models are 'revealing'? Maybe those models should put some more clothes on if they don't want to catch the flu?
</silly_season>
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
WUSSIES. .
wake me when it's 1918 all over again.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Whenever I read stories like this it reminds me of a Stephen King short story. I have forgotten the title, but I believe it is what he eventually developed into The Stand. Everyone is dying of a flu-like disease, and one of the characters is thinking that a big monolith should be constructed by the few humans left to inform any future alien visitors as to what happened to our civilization. Carved into the granite, it should simply read, "It was the flu."
Proverbs 21:19
I was about to say something like that. Only less diplomatic.
People are remembering how previous, highly publicised breakouts turned out to be minor. At least globally.
They forget the immense effort by WHO and similar to prevent the outbreaks from becoming pandemics. SARS and N1H1 both were contained. Partially because they weren't as deadly as first thought, but definitely also due to enforced measures.
This new one, by all indications is no spring flu. This one kills, and if it does start spreading between humans directly, we are in trouble.
At least it'll probably help solve the global overpopulation problem rather efficiently.
Well, until the disease resolves in China, let's just ban them from landing outside their country. In this day in age, telecommuting and teleconferences negate much of any need to visit in person anyway.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Doesn't that violate the "no free lunch" theory, though? If it was genetically advantageous for a virus to mutate more than it normally does, why wouldn't it already be doing so?
I certainly hope that Sladhot has acquired "Independent.ie's express written consent" for linking to their article in the scoop, as stipulated in the newspaper's online edition's Terms & Conditions:
Hypertext links to this website by other users and websites are permitted provided that the link to this website is in a simple list of companies by pointing to Independent.ie's home page http://www.independent.ie. This limited licence entitles other users and websites to link to Independent.ie's home page only, and linking to other content on or information in this website is prohibited without Independent.ie's express written consent.
I think all the models are way off considering that usually the "Reality" of the spread of these things is far far less than the "Reporting" of this news.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Well, the people that have been killed were old people, so it's not exactly a killer virus yet.
HA! I knew things were better in America, where chickens are separated by people and exposure to the majority of us comes through frozen, deep-fried chicken strips rather than on the bone, in the feather like in China.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Your pants are clear for browning.
I'm not sure if natural selection norms apply to viruses since they are not independent living organisms. They may very well be limited by the, for lack of a better term, 'bandwidth' of the host cells, and mutagenic compounds may reduce those limitations. Obviously I'm neither a geneticist nor microbiologist, so I could be quite wrong in my intuition about the matter.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Dear Media,
We've heard this, or variants of it, too many times and are now desensitized to it.
Until you show us a pile of bodies, we're inert.
Sincerely,
The People
This new one, by all indications is no spring flu. This one kills, and if it does start spreading between humans directly, we are in trouble.
Yeah, that's what they said about H5N1, and a million different viruses and diseases that were the disease-of-the-moment before that, going back decades (remember the Russian Flu, anyone?). A bunch of epidemiologists get a lot of grant money, news channels get some ratings from the disease-of-the-moment, the public overreacts like they always do, much bullshit is spoken, and a year or two later it's on to the next goddamned thing that's going to KILL US ALL!
And before you cite 1918 (as is ALWAYS cited in these pandemic scares), spare me. This isn't an era of shitty sanitation, poor understanding of viruses, awful medical treatment, and scores of people living in overcrowded tenements with no sewers and in crowded WWI-era military encampments.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Yet we'll throw wheelbarrows of money and human capital at statistical non-events like terrorism, while seasonal flu alone kills 37K annually in the US. Spare me...
Modelling has a limited ability to help in Engineering. And modelling has no ability to provide data to any real scientific study.
It does not replace experimentation and real data. And its results should always be taken with a grain of salt. There is no way a model on the scale of human culture and global weather (or even local weather for that matter) can be trusted. The entropy cannot be accurately modelled by the system.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
We have China and Taiwan. When it gets to a third country it will be epidemic, according to the definition of the word.
Except for the Chinese who insist that it would have to get to two more countries.
Ezekiel 23:20
It's probably because there are more mutagenic compounds floating around than in the past.
Or, it's been happening all the time and we didn't know it? I still don't think that you can match the exposure of workers in, say, 1800's when they've been in close contact with all sorts of nasty chemicals without any protection equipment. And before that, medical science and statistics practically didn't exist at all. It's just that we're studying health issues with much closer scrutiny of facts than ever before in recorded history.
Ezekiel 23:20
People are remembering how previous, highly publicised breakouts turned out to be minor. At least globally.
People are also remembering how influenza epidemic scares drive up sales of flu vaccines, which I'm sure is something the manufacturers and retailers of those vaccines really hate and is entirely coincidental.
I am officially gone from
Going to substantiate that, or must I don my tinfoil hat?
The Chinese really ought to use condoms when they are "Chicken Farming".
Well, the people that have been killed were old people, so it's not exactly a killer virus yet.
You ain't getting any younger, chucko. And just keep in mind, by the time you are 'old people', healthcare in the US will be limited to three generic aspirin tablets and a used bandaid per month.
You damn well hope we figure it out before then.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If you aren't sure that natural selection applies to viruses, you should quit posting in a thread that requires said knowledge to post correctly.
Antigenic shift and drift was discovered in influenza viruses. Protein self assembly and the genetics surrounding that, core concepts in molecular biology were also derived from virus studies. Viruses were key to unraveling the molecular components of natural (and unnatural) selection.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Sanitation doesn't have a goddam thing to do with the spread of influenza. It is spread by human breath - so unless you consider getting the entire population to wear N95 respirators as a sanitation advance, then there are no sanitation improvements that will matter a whit against an influenza pandemic. And our understanding of viruses, while it has progressed greatly, has still not yielded one measure other than vaccinations (which are not a possible solution should this one go pandemic any time soon) that will help staunch a pandemic. Sorry, you need to educate yourself before you continue to spout nonsense. And BTW, have you ever been to Shanghai, Mumbai, or even a housing project in the US? Overcrowded tenements! And lack of sewage has little to do with passing viruses that float in the air.
The normal flu is quite virulent, but outside of high risk groups, the mortality rate is also quite low. Not pleasant, but low mortality.
(IANAI - I Am Not An Immunologist) The dangers about these cross-over influenzas is that they tend have a higher-than-average kill rate for generally higher. With global transfer of diseases, a mortality rate of just 1% and infection rate of 10% of the global populate is still around 7 million people. Spanish flu in 1919 had a hit rate of between 2% and 20% (according to wikipedia). A *very* sobering number.
If we have a contagious, long incubation, high mortality virus hit the globe, we are in a very bad state. Any signal of a pandemic needs to be taken seriously.
And before you cite 1918 (as is ALWAYS cited in these pandemic scares), spare me. This isn't an era of shitty sanitation, poor understanding of viruses, awful medical treatment, and scores of people living in overcrowded tenements with no sewers and in crowded WWI-era military encampments.
Yeah, because I know when the regular seasonal flu comes around no one ever gets it. Never spreads at all.
Come on man. There's not some magical technology field that prevents diseases from spreading. Noravirus can spread to 100 people before the first carrier even knows their sick (my sister's wedding ended up with virtually every guest spending the next day in the bathroom). Schools regularly close down when the flu gets out of hand (twice when I was in high school when more than 50% of the student body was out sick). But hey, we've got sanitation and better hospitals, so I'm sure we can just ignore outbreaks and they'll take care of themselves.
Motley Fool:
Sure, the swine flu didn't send revenue skyrocketing, but it was some nice extra bacon that far exceeded what most companies would have gotten for just the seasonal flu. For instance, AstraZeneca's pandemic sales were more than 2.5 times that of its seasonal FluMist vaccine; Glaxo[SmithKlein] quadrupled the revenue seen for its seasonal vaccines Fluarix and FluLaval.
There's definitely a correlation between flu scares and sales of flu vaccine, as every source I looked at specifically mentioned swine flu as a driver of vaccination recommendations.
My take: There's a real problem here, but it's blown way out of proportion. The flu vaccine manufacturers have every reason in the world to make it sound like "We're all gonna die! Panic! Get vaccinated right away!" when what actually happens is that the people who die tend to be elderly or otherwise already sick, while healthy adults fight it off pretty easily. And those same manufacturers are major advertisers on television networks, so they could very easily say to their sales rep at the network "You know, we'd really like to see more coverage of the flu problem. Here's some information about it to get you started."
Not a grand conspiracy, just this business model:
1. Find a problem
2. Figure out a solution to this problem.
3. Help news organizations convince the general public that this problem presents a lethal threat.
4. Sell the solution.
5. Profit!
I am officially gone from
Dear post-apocalyptic scientists,
I have the antibodies you seek. Time is short so I won't go into detail, but several years ago I caught a deadly strain of proto-flu from a stray cat. This would have been a death sentence for lesser men, but due to my viking DNA and a cocktail of immuno-boosting supplements, I survived. I've linked to my webpage in hopes that you will still be able to contact me once the human race begins to crumble. Failing that, you can find the entrance to my bunker atop the hill in my hometown. I'll monitor CB channel 19 everyday at dusk awaiting broadcast of your response. I can only hope this message reaches you before it's too late. Good luck, and gesundheit.
Exactly like it in that it was adverted, barely, through hard work.
Every respiratory and er bad in Portland alone was completely full. If there has been literally 1 more case, they would have been turned away,and in all likely hood would have been another death..
Yes LITERALLY.
A lot of people died, but we cut it off. Yes jerkwads show up saying how it was nothing because they are ignorant SOBs.
Epidemic hits:"WHY DIDN'T YOU DO SOMETHING!!!"
epidemic averted through hard word: "YOU DID ALL THAT FOR NOTHING!!!!"
Fucking idiots.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You are wrong stop saying shit and pretending you know what you are talking about.
Its an epidemic when it substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience.
The number of countries is irrelevant.
God I hate people like you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You're an idiot. the worse kind of idiot, a loud mouth idiot.
"that's what they said about H5N1, "
yes, and a lot of people dies, nad hospitales were full, and portland rea was completly out of respirators.
It was bad, and it it had gone for another day, yes DAY, before starting to subside hospitals would have been turning people away.
100's of people at PAX alone got very ill, and several people died.
Dodged a bullet.
But you don't know that right? you don't read the numbers, look at morbidity rates do you? you don't run statistics and look at the impact from over use of JIT delivery systems DO YOU?
no, you don't. You just blow it off like nothing as if it's some scam. You are stupid. You are ignorant, you are a worthless piece of shit that needs to STFU.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Unsanitary condition that is covered by innoculating their birds with vaccines and tamiflu. Sadly, when it goes around the world, this will be damaging because the Chinese have already genetically selected the most lethal virus.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Easily fight it off"--Yeah right. SARS killed healthy people *because* of their strong immune response! A new virus can cause a very strong reaction from the immune system and you can die from the over-reaction and subsequent effects on your systems, especially the respiratory system.
No, but there is a big difference between making rational plans for a general pandemic at some point in the future and making specific, overexaggerated claims about a specific virus that will only lead to irrational panic, especially when the claims are coming from an organization (the CDC) with a vested financial interest in inducing fear and a very long history of making these sorts of proclamations.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."