A new strain of flu that has the potential to become a pandemic has been identified in China by scientists.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53218704
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53218704
Oh ffs not again
- Thread starter golden_blunder
- Start date
Corona 2: Electric Boogaloo.
It seems like a strain of H1N1 (the same virus that caused the swine flu and the Spanish flu) rather than a new virus. Considering how shit this year has been, why not having a second pandemic. At this stage, I wouldn't be surprised if some avian flu becomes a pandemic while an asteroid is planning to hit us and the Sun decides to go supernova.
Once bitten, twice shy.
Maybe this one will kill the first one.
Yeah, just like Jurassic World.
Spoiler FFS!!
I'd say kill all the pigs as preventative measure but Im pretty sure you can't taste the flu in bacon.
One can't kill all the pigs, ask the Spanish explorers how that went in America.
Lets hope they take stringent measures asap. Better to be safe than sorry.
Boris round 2
Why the feck not eh
And the source of this virus is... Animals reared for food. What a surprise.
Vegetarianism/ veganism or however pedantic one wants to be... for the win
On the bright side, with everyone already social distancing it hopefully won't get very far.
If we cook the pigs like I did my recent steak, we will be safe.
About that...
Fool me once shame on Wu(han). Fool me twice? That's just not nice.
Death by dehydration is a thing.
We go again
If China as a country would turn vegetarian the world would be a better place
One more virus and I'm fecking off to NZ.
Easy to say about the country with the highest population in the world and that's been ridden with famines. It's not like they happily and purposely chose to having to resort to such dietery choices.
If you’re worried about viruses, mixing with animals for any reason isn’t a great idea. MERS was transmitted by camels (not bred for food) and the main interaction with bats that occasionally cause their viruses to jump to man involves picking up bat shit to use as fertiliser (to grow vegetables to eat)
Not really serious, tongue in cheek.
they do need to look at their food hygiene practices though, too many viruses originating from animals there
Good luck getting in
Is a new strain of flu easier to manage because we have more experience with them (yearly flu shots) or is that wrong?
It depends on the nature of the strain, some of them haven't been properly managed since their discovery, iirc H3N2 is one of them. Others are easily manageable.
Isle of Man is the place to be (assuming you’re uk based). Getting in might be a struggle but beyond that life is completely back to normal here now. 42 days I think it is now without a new case.
It's not unique to China though. Apparently, there has been an H3N2 flu variant on US pig farms since the 90s that has dangerous potential, but they still have not been able to eradicate. (But that's just one example compared to multiple from China and Hong Kong since SARS.)
From what I have read, this G4 virus is not that scary just yet. Although everyone is vulnerable to it since it's new, it can't be transmitted between humans just yet and it doesn't make people dangerously sick. Since it's an H1N1 flu strain, people that had that variant in the past might have residual immunity, and a vaccine could be developed relatively quickly, based off existing H1N1 vaccines. But it won't be done tomorrow, the virus is already dominant among pigs in 10 Chinese provinces, and its characteristics could change quickly. So in the meantime, I guess it's a good thing heightened hygiene measures are already in effect due to COVID-19...
(Source in Dutch, if anyone's interested.)
Fingers crossed it ends up the more manageable case. I don't want to imagine having two strains in the wild on top of Brexit looming