The Global Pandemic Nobody's Talking About
The Global Pandemic Nobody's Talking About
H5N1 is, so far, 52% fatal in humans
H5N1, aka Avian Influenza aka Bird Flu is officially a “global zoonotic animal pandemic” due to its rampaging spread over the last two years. When humans get it, and they do, more than half of us die. (Pandemic Experts Express Concern over Avian Influenza Spread to Humans | UN News 2024 Apr 18)
There have not been many human cases, only two documented in the US so far, because up until recently, bird flu pretty much stayed in birds. But for the past two years it’s been mutating rapidly, and has developed the ability to spread from birds to goats and from birds to cows. Additionally, it’s managed to learn how to spread from goat to goat and from cow to cow.
We already know it can spread from cows, goats, or birds, to humans. It has only happened about 900 times, that we know of, but when it has, the fatality rate in humans is 52%. And the World Health Organization says that if it mutates the ability to spread from human to human, we’ll have the next global pandemic. (MSN)
And it already has done so. “There have been instances of people infected with bird flu transmitting it to other human beings, but this is rare and sporadic.” (Dr. Leanna Wen, MSN)
It is mainly transmitted to humans by direct exposure to infected animals, and sometimes by ingesting unpasteurized milk from an infected cow. (All the milk is mixed together, so if even one cow in a herd is infected, all the milk could be contaminated. Although, really, if one cow has it, the whole herd is exposed anyway.) It can also be transmitted by eating the undercooked meat of infected animals.
It can spread to our pets.
I don’t know where you live, but I live surrounded by dairy farms. Last winter a herd of young cows escaped captivity and spent weeks in my back yard. They came out at night and left deep hoof tracks and manure piles everywhere. We never caught sight of them by day. I kind of hoped they would never be caught and would live out their days in the wild, as a local farmer told me they’re fully capable of doing. But alas, they were recaptured and returned to the farm. If they had been infected with H5N1, I have no doubt my mastiff Roxy would have contracted it.
What’s being done about it?
We are not hearing a lot about this in the United States. Then again, we’re having a rather big news… decade, I guess. But authorities are concerned enough that they have already begun work on vaccines against the virus. “As part of pandemic preparedness activities and as a WHO Collaborating Center, CDC regularly develops candidate vaccine viruses (CVVs)—viruses made for production of vaccine—for novel bird flu viruses with pandemic potential. Two existing HPAI A(H5N1) candidate vaccine viruses are already available to manufacturers, and which could be used to make vaccine if needed.” (CDC 2024 Apr 18)
The good news
There’s been a huge breakthrough in RNA vaccine development that is likely to eliminate the need to contantly update vaccines to protect against new mutations. It works on the core parts of any virus, and would protect against future mutations. This would revolutionize vaccines for Flu, Covid, RSV, and eventually, when we need it, vaccines against bird flu. (Vaccine Breakthrough Means No More Chasing Strains | UCR News | UC Riverside)
The other good news, for those still eating animals, is that pasturiszed milk and properly handled, thoroughly cooked meat are still “safe” to eat. (Safe is a relative term here. Personally, I don’t consider such powerful carcinogens “safe” to eat.
Brutality to stop the spread
To stop the spread, entire herds of cattle, goats, and millions upon millions of chickens are being wiped out. There are so many millions of chickens that killing them all at once would take too much time and money, so they turn off the air flow, and turn up the heat until the entire flock die of heat stroke. They basically cook them alive. Go humans!
Zoonotic Diseases are diseases that originated in animals and spread to humans, and there are more than 40 of them including our most common flu, the one we get vaccinated for each year, which was originally called Swine Flu. The list includes covid 19, ebola, anthrax, giardiasis, hepatitis E, HIV, leptospirosis, lyme disease, malaria, plague, rabies, ringworm, rocky mountain spotted fever, salmonella, E.coli, West Nile virus, and zoonotic diptheria, to name a few of the big hits.
I don’t know how we haven’t got the memo by now. We need to stop raising, slaughtering and eating 50 billion chickens, 1.5 billion pigs, 590 million sheep, 300 million cows per year. (Not to mention 93 million TONS of fish. There are too many killed to count individuals.)
Why are we getting sicker and sicker?
This is why. It’s because we’re raising and eating more and more animals. Part of it is a direct physical result of our behavior. The cholesterol, heart disease, hypertension, cancer, stroke are all side effects of our terrible diets. The the diseases, covid, AIDS, flu are also side effects of how the animals we eart are raised.
But I think the hand of karma is playing just as big a roll. Every belief system includes something about receiving what you put out.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
“Ever mind the rule of three; three times what thou giveth, returns unto thee.”
We kill the animals. We eat the animals. The animals kill us.
Sources
CDC. 2024 Apr 18. What CDC Is Doing about Bird Flu Outbreaks in Dairy Cows. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [accessed 2024 Apr 20]. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/what-cdc-doing-h5n1.htm.
MSN. wwwmsncom. [accessed 2024 Apr 20]. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/is-it-safe-to-drink-milk-and-eat-chicken-what-precautions-to-take-during-the-bird-flu-outbreak/ar-BB1lsb6N.
Pandemic Experts Express Concern over Avian Influenza Spread to Humans | UN News. 2024 Apr 18. newsunorg. [accessed 2024 Apr 20]. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148696#:~:text=Pandemic%20experts%20express%20concern%20over%20avian%20influenza%20spread%20to%20humans.
Vaccine Breakthrough Means No More Chasing Strains | UCR News | UC Riverside. newsucredu. [accessed 2024 Apr 20]. https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2024/04/15/vaccine-breakthrough-means-no-more-chasing-strains.
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WINGS IN THE NIGHT
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