Since when is the WHO so vocal about every single thing. Did they hire a new pr firm in ‘19?
WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
51–57 of 57 posts
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I've read, they aren't sure about human to human transmission. Roughly a dozen people have had H5N1, but they all plausibly could have gotten it from poultry handling. Which means a) no need to panic, but definitely a good idea to keep an eye on things in case we do observe human human transmission and b) Maybe we need to revisit how we raise animals for food....
> Maybe we need to revisit how we raise animals for food Maybe the problem isn't how, but how many.
Sure, I mean, those are definitely related.
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
After 2 cases in the same family in Cambodia a director of the WHO says “The global H5N1 situation is worrying given the wide spread of the virus in birds around the world and the increasing reports of cases in mammals including humans,” The Guardian's headline is "WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia" This sounds a) reasonable grounds for worry by someone who studies epidemics…
> a) reasonable grounds for worry by someone who studies epidemics What does this have to do with the accuracy of the headline? You're just appealing to authority -- but the same authority figure says, in the same article , that the 2 cases in Cambodia may not even be an example of human-to-human transmission: > “So far, it is too early to know if it’s human-to-human transmission or exposure to the same environmental…
They are worried that it may have been human to human transmission. Yes, they say they don't know for sure, but even the possibility is worrying to them. Hence, "worrying" in the title
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#54[flagged]
Your comment somehow improve your observation?
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> SARS and MERS were contained, for example No, they weren't. They spread widely, and then simply petered off for reasons we don't fully understand. To conclude that we therefore "contained" these viruses via some bureaucratic measure is a classic example of human hubris with regards to our power over nature.
That's totally false. Infection control systems were activated. SARS and MERS did not spread widely, either. Here's one example from Canada: >All hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Simcoe County were ordered to activate their “Code Orange” emergency plans by the government. “Code Orange” meant that the involved hospitals suspended nonessential services. They were also required to limit visitors, create i…
> Infection control systems were activated
No one said otherwise. You're leaping to the conclusion that these "control systems" caused the viruses to go away.
> SARS and MERS did not spread widely, either.
SARS: 8096 known cases across 29 different countries. [1]
MERS: 2603 known cases across 27 different countries. We're still seeing cases, btw. [2]
I guess we have different definitions of "spread widely". (Also "contained", in the case of MERS.) As I said, the viruses petered out after rapidly spreading around the world. We still don't understand why, but it's arrogance to conclude that it was something humans did that "contained" them (particularly when at least one of them wasn't stopped).
> Contact tracing is standard even for outbreaks of diseases as common as measles.
...and it doesn't work well for respiratory viruses, as we just learned from watching the world try to do it for years, only to fail completely.
Of all the debunked interventions we witnessed over the last 3 years, "contact tracing respiratory illnesses" is uniquely amongst the most costly and damaging blunders in human history. Yes, "public health" may engage in this kind of pseudo-scientific, bureaucratic theater, but it certainly doesn't mean that it's effective.
Bringing this to the current day, the bird flu is now endemic amongst wild birds (and possibly other animals) around the planet -- that is how it is getting into chicken farms despite all of our current efforts. The horse (or the chicken, in this case) is literally out of the barn. If bird-to-human or human-to-human transmission were common, we'd know it by now. Moreover, if that were true, there's literally zero chance that we could somehow "contain" a virus endemic in the animal population. It's going to do what it's going to do.
[1] https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/summary-of-probable-...
[2] https://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/mers-cov/mers-outbrea...
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's totally false. Infection control systems were activated. SARS and MERS did not spread widely, either. Here's one example from Canada: >All hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Simcoe County were ordered to activate their “Code Orange” emergency plans by the government. “Code Orange” meant that the involved hospitals suspended nonessential services. They were also required to limit visitors, create i…
> Infection control systems were activated No one said otherwise. You're leaping to the conclusion that these "control systems" caused the viruses to go away. > SARS and MERS did not spread widely, either. SARS: 8096 known cases across 29 different countries. [1] MERS: 2603 known cases across 27 different countries. We're still seeing cases, btw. [2] I guess we have different definitions of "spread widely". (Also "co…
I lived in a place that did contact tracing for SARS-Cov-2 and it definitely worked. Other places in Canada had large outbreaks they had to quell with extensive lockdowns to prevent hospital overwhelm.
Nova Scotia did extensive contact tracing when a case first appeared and often could get rid of small outbreaks without additional measures (beyond border controls.)
The spread of SARS and MERS around the world was via airplanes. That doesn’t mean they for firmly established in any population.
Re: WHO says avian flu cases in humans ‘worrying’ after girl’s death in Cambodia
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Infection control systems were activated No one said otherwise. You're leaping to the conclusion that these "control systems" caused the viruses to go away. > SARS and MERS did not spread widely, either. SARS: 8096 known cases across 29 different countries. [1] MERS: 2603 known cases across 27 different countries. We're still seeing cases, btw. [2] I guess we have different definitions of "spread widely". (Also "co…
I lived in a place that did contact tracing for SARS-Cov-2 and it definitely worked. Other places in Canada had large outbreaks they had to quell with extensive lockdowns to prevent hospital overwhelm. Nova Scotia did extensive contact tracing when a case first appeared and often could get rid of small outbreaks without additional measures (beyond border controls.) The spread of SARS and MERS around the world was via…
In literally every part of the world, SARS-CoV2 is endemic. It didn't "work", you're just making a post hoc attribution of wiggles in the first derivative of case counts to an action that you prefer.
A far more parsimonious reason that (for example) Novia Scotia had fewer cases (for a time) is that Novia Scotia is in the middle of nowhere and has less than a million people. It's the inverse of the reason that the major cities of the world got it first.