(Roughly) Daily

Noting that, technically, all pandemic flus start as bird flus, the estimable “Scott Alexander” addresses three all-too-timely questions: What is the H5N1 bird flu? Will it cause the next big pandemic? If so, how bad would that pandemic be?

The entire post is eminently worth reading; here, the summary:

Conclusions / Predictions

All discussed earlier in the piece, but putting them here for easy reference – see above for justifications and qualifications.

1. H5N1 is already pandemic in birds and cows and will likely continue to increase the price of meat and milk.
2. 5% chance that H5N1 starts a sustained pandemic in humans in the next year.
3. 50% chance that H5N1 starts a sustained pandemic in humans in the next twenty years, assuming no dramatic changes to the world (eg human extinction) during that time.
4. If H5N1 does start a sustained pandemic in the next few years, 30% chance it’s about as bad as a normal seasonal flu, 63% chance it’s between 2 – 10x as bad (eg Asian Flu), 6% chance it’s between 10 – 100x as bad (eg Spanish flu), and <1% chance it’s >100x as bad (unprecedented). The 1% chance is Outside View based on other people’s claims, and I don’t really understand how this could happen.

Don’t give your true love a partridge, a turtledove, or (especially) a French hen: “H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know,” from @astralcodexten.com.web.brid.gy

See also: “How America Lost Control of the Bird Flu, Setting the Stage for Another Pandemic” from Kaiser Health News.

As Larry Brilliant once said, “outbreaks are inevitable, but pandemics are optional.”

* Barack Obama

###

As we prioritize preparation, we might spare a thought for Pierre-Joseph van Beneden; he died on this date in 1894. A zoologist and paleontologist, he specialized in parasitic worms and discovered the life cycle of tapeworms (Cestoda).

He is credited with introducing the term mutualism in biology– naming a phenomenon akin to the invader-host relationship central to the development of flus– in 1875.

source