Henry, this is like watching a slow motion train wreck.
Unlike Al Qaeda, the virus doesn't even need to hide its plans. We watch the recombinations, reassortments and mutations and they just keep on going. We can't stop them. They are in the wild in the natural world and hopping the fence regularly into our domestic world for another test run. One day, they'll hit the jackpot. That's just the way numbers run.
We know we don't have immunity, though about 30% of those infected will live to tell the story.
Unless we take some action, it seems certain that our DNA will be wrung out by the H5N1 recombined bug and it will have found a host to carry on in symbiotic attack on the vulnerable. Humans in the immune club will survive and those whose DNA or immunity isn't good enough will be deemed unfit for survival.
Biological warfare has always been part of life in the jungle but I've only recently realized how it works. It's like a tag-team. Immune humans and their host bugs kill off DNA which doesn't fit in the team.
Since we really don't have anything in common with the bug n the modern world, it's better that any human survives than any of the bugs, [unless the bugs can identify criminal DNA and preferentially kill them, which would be no bad thing - I'd be happy to act as host for criminal-killing bugs, even if it cost me a little biologically - we pay the legal system to do the same job and they are expensive].
It seems we need a HUGE vaccine development programme to stop all these bugs. The current financing of tsunami victims should be duplicated 1000 fold to prevent bugs killing us. Bugs kill a LOT more than tsunamis. Malaria alone does wayyyyy more. There's something about just getting sick and dying which is less worrying than being killed by a tsunami.
How else can we stop bugs conducting genocide? Maybe they were good once upon a time when tribal genocidal war was popular, but these days, we don't need them.
Right now, everyone is wringing their hands over the tsunami, with maybe 200,000 likely to die from it, but before May, that could easily be dwarfed by an H5N1 success which could kill 1000 times as many. Weird! I suppose it's the old bird in the hand worth two in the bush syndrome. Heck, in a couple of years, a good H5N1 attack could kill 2 billion if all our DNA and immune systems are tested in action. That's 10,000 victims for each tsunami victim. That would be a real shock. I suppose there would be a vaccine and reduced vectors of transmission by the time 2 billion were killed so the infection would fizzle out for lack of victims [who would also be hiding in the hills].
Mqurice |
