currently, we can catch it from the birds, but not necessarily from each other(?) - someone with more info, please correct me on any of this...
I've been following the news of it since late last year, so I think I can regurgitate some useful info. This is from so many articles that I am not going to footnote anything, but if you are interested in where I got the info, pm me and I'll see if I can dig up the appropriate article as I have many of the links saved in my gmail.
Yeah, we can't catch it easily from other humans yet but every new human case makes it more likely that the virus will mutate to transmit more easily from person to person. The virus used to be more lethal than it is now but that kind of infection rate isn't sustainable if you're killing off all your hosts, which is why it is down where it is now. A few months ago, Chinese poultry farmers innoculated their poultry with one of the only two human drugs at the time that was effective against the virus, making the virus immune to that drug. Also, Tamiflu is now wearing off even though everyone is still stockpiling it (viruses are funny like that). In case you care about more politics of the situation, even if the drug continues to work, it probably doesn't matter if Roche licenses other companies to make Tamiflu because it is manufactured from Star Anise- and supposedly that crop is getting very low at the moment (although I just bought some from Ranch 99 market the other day for $0.99 :
hrug:: ). Anyway, there is only a limited amount of the raw material and having multiple companies make it probably won't make it be produced much faster.Supposedly once the first successful human to human version of H5N1 hits, it's going to take 3 days for it to reach every corner of the globe thanks to modern transportation. This is obviously makes scenarios for initial quarantine problematic when you remember that the gestational period of viruses is 2-3 days before you even get symptoms. And even then you have to wonder during the initial symptoms if it is normal flu or the kind of flu where you start coughing up blood from your lungs. Since there's might not be a way to know when it has first started, protect yourself by not ever touching your face, eyes, nose, or mouth while in public places or if you've recently been in public places (and if you are a parent, don't accidentally give them a deadly pathogen because you want to wipe something off their face
). Buy N95 masks, I think Amazon sells them for ~$18/ 20ct, because suppliers will run out almost immediately if the virus goes human to human.Okay, the last thing I want to say is directed toward everyone who is getting angry about the possibility of martial law in the U.S. Sure I like to jump on the I hate Karl Rove's minions hate train as much as half the country, but even considering that this administration has opportunistically used tragedy to benefit its own agenda (just as the Dems would have if they were in power) and misused power to restructure voting districts (Texas) and passed questionable laws and created a whole new section of the government to watch its citizens and on and on and on... How do you propose that we maintain water, electricity, food, and order to whole cities under quarantine WITHOUT USING THE MILITARY? Think about it.
) and - it's a -flu,- fer cryin' out loud... ebola has a more 'limited' range, as far as its transference/infection m.o., so that's why it's transference rate during 'burn' is more easily controllable...
