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China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

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Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#101

Post by areyousure »

vkou wrote: post #95
copper-float wrote: post #36

Time for another three years of lockdowns. (I hope not)

My town had three months of lockdowns, followed by (so far!) three years of complaining about lockdowns. (If I live long enough, I expect to hear thirty three more years of complaining about lockdowns.)

In case anyone is curious, it appears the location in question had three months of "stay at home", over a year of other restrictions (including school closures), 625 days of broad mask requirements, and so forth. In fact, some mask requirements are still in effect today.

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#102

Post by maxerickson »

tshaddox wrote: post #83
alephnerd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccines and mass masking work. Lockdowns not so much: "Overall, our meta-analysis fails to confirm the notion that lockdowns – at least in the spring of 2020 – had a large, significant effect on mortality rates. Studies examining the relationship between lockdown strictness (based on the OxCGRT stringency index) find that the average lockdown in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 3.2% co…

What are the plausible explanations for how strict lockdowns wouldn't significantly slow down infections for a respiratory disease? Is it basically just that the lockdown strictness, duration, and enforcement is never sufficient to make a difference for such a highly contagious disease? Like there basically isn't a sufficient decrease in the number of person-to-person contacts to meaningfully change the end result of…

It can partly be that lots of people will self isolate, so imposed restrictions don't reduce their contact any further.

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#103

Post by prottog »

gtop3 wrote: post #86
behnamoh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do these viruses often appear in China first? Has there been any study to find out any common patterns? Is it the food? Culture? Living environment?

The viral jump from animals to humans is a common mechanism in many of the worst pandemics, with covid-19 and hiv being prime recent examples. There's some evidence "the spanish flu" of 1918 came from swine. If I were working on the problem "how can we reduce the frequency new very dangerous viruses are introduced" I would pay attention to this aspect.

> The viral jump from animals to humans

I thought the most likely origin of Covid-19 is a lab leak (at least according to the latest from the DOE and the FBI), likely from gain-of-function research gone wrong?

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#104

Post by clnq »

behnamoh wrote: post #68
chatmasta wrote: post #53

BNONews has been making a dashboard for every maybe-virus the past year (recently they had Monkeypox and some other one, Marburg maybe)? None of those turned into any major problem. They're pandemic profiteering, so while I appreciate the data they're collecting, I'm not quite ready to start freaking out about it.

Why do these viruses often appear in China first? Has there been any study to find out any common patterns? Is it the food? Culture? Living environment?

One possible reason for delayed virus detection in the West is our sluggish response to identifying new strains (in some of our largest countries, not all). But I think the emergence and spread of serious viral infections is largely influenced by population density, rather than geographical location. And the population density in China has gone up a lot in about the last decade, making more serious transmissible diseases come out of China recently.

When Covid's first wave saw exponential infection growth, statistics and graphs demonstrated striking similarities among urban areas worldwide. In contrast, rural regions consistently exhibited lower infection rates throughout the pandemic.

To illustrate this with a personal anecdote, I know someone who lives in a tiny village on a ranch (population: ~30), and they have reported seeing zero Covid cases, having interacted with around 50 other people over the last four years. I think this underscores the role of population density in virus transmission.

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#105

Post by WillPostForFood »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #94
loeg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monkeypox was pretty clearly a non-event for the vast majority of the population pretty early on. There continued to be misleading and fearmongering reporting for weeks and months after that was obvious, because of the well-known phenomenon where media gets more clicks and eyeballs if the "news" is bad. Also, Covid doomers really wanted a 2nd thing to be depressed about.

It remained a non-event for the vast majority of the population because the most vulnerable proportion of the population participated in a widespread vaccination campaign. If a little extra screen time in the media made that campaign successful it paid dividends for public health, imo.

the most vulnerable proportion of the population participated in a widespread vaccination campaign

It looks like about 425k men were fully vaccinated, and another 250k got a single vaccine. That's not amazing compliance if you assume the vulnerable population is somewhere in the 3-16 million range.

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/response/2022/vaccines_dat...

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#106

Post by prewett »

clnq wrote: post #104
behnamoh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do these viruses often appear in China first? Has there been any study to find out any common patterns? Is it the food? Culture? Living environment?

One possible reason for delayed virus detection in the West is our sluggish response to identifying new strains (in some of our largest countries, not all). But I think the emergence and spread of serious viral infections is largely influenced by population density, rather than geographical location. And the population density in China has gone up a lot in about the last decade, making more serious transmissible dise…

People in China also interact more closely with animals, and with a wider variety, than in the West. The West does not have any wet markets or nor the wide variety of species available for consumption. This helps in the virus jumping species. Once it jumps, the population density helps it spread.

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#107

Post by acdha »

prottog wrote: post #103
gtop3 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The viral jump from animals to humans is a common mechanism in many of the worst pandemics, with covid-19 and hiv being prime recent examples. There's some evidence "the spanish flu" of 1918 came from swine. If I were working on the problem "how can we reduce the frequency new very dangerous viruses are introduced" I would pay attention to this aspect.

> The viral jump from animals to humans I thought the most likely origin of Covid-19 is a lab leak (at least according to the latest from the DOE and the FBI), likely from gain-of-function research gone wrong?

No – even that DOE report gave it a low probability ranking. It’s perfect for conspiracy mongers because you can’t completely rule out the possibility but the evidence has pretty consistently pointed at a non-lab jump, possibly in the wet market, and that’s not surprising since it’s a common scenario scientists have been warning about for decades.

See for example this recent analysis:

https://zenodo.org/record/7754299

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#108

Post by sgent »

prewett wrote: post #106
clnq wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible reason for delayed virus detection in the West is our sluggish response to identifying new strains (in some of our largest countries, not all). But I think the emergence and spread of serious viral infections is largely influenced by population density, rather than geographical location. And the population density in China has gone up a lot in about the last decade, making more serious transmissible dise…

People in China also interact more closely with animals, and with a wider variety, than in the West. The West does not have any wet markets or nor the wide variety of species available for consumption. This helps in the virus jumping species. Once it jumps, the population density helps it spread.

Ever been to a county fair?

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#109

Post by jojobas »

bpp wrote: post #55
chatmasta wrote: post #53

BNONews has been making a dashboard for every maybe-virus the past year (recently they had Monkeypox and some other one, Marburg maybe)? None of those turned into any major problem. They're pandemic profiteering, so while I appreciate the data they're collecting, I'm not quite ready to start freaking out about it.

I wouldn't call Monkeypox a maybe virus, especially along with these. Its spread was mostly limited to a single community (sexually active gay men), and it absolutely would have spread out of control had there not been a very strong vaccination campaign with high rates of compliance. Within that community, there were many people who were impacted and many others who changed their behavior to help mitigate to spread.

>sexually active

I think you meant "promiscuous".

Re: China reports human case of H3N8 bird flu

#110

Post by prottog »

acdha wrote: post #107
prottog wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The viral jump from animals to humans I thought the most likely origin of Covid-19 is a lab leak (at least according to the latest from the DOE and the FBI), likely from gain-of-function research gone wrong?

No – even that DOE report gave it a low probability ranking. It’s perfect for conspiracy mongers because you can’t completely rule out the possibility but the evidence has pretty consistently pointed at a non-lab jump, possibly in the wet market, and that’s not surprising since it’s a common scenario scientists have been warning about for decades. See for example this recent analysis: https://zenodo.org/record/775429…

> even that DOE report gave it a low probability ranking

Well, specifically, they assessed with "low confidence" that the "most likely" source was a lab leak. Meaning they think the wet market theory is less likely, though also with low confidence.

I do note in the analysis you linked that the authors admit to unusual circumstances around the data they used, and that the source of the data is the Chinese CDC. Given the obvious incentive on the part of the Chinese government to disclaim a lab leak, I'm hesitant to take this as conclusive evidence.

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