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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Ish who wrote (172323)10/12/2005 6:03:42 AM
From: Bilow  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Hi Ish; Re: "It wouldn't matter if the mortality rate was 100% as long as those infected shed the virus 2 days before showing symptoms."

This really is alarmist. Bugs always mutate in such a way as to reduce virulence. The reason cross species bugs are so nasty is because they're not yet adapted to humans. Long before the bird flu killed many millions of people it would have mutated to a less deadly variety that spread just a tiny bit faster.

It's not pretty if you're in the region where it first breaks out, but medical care, and more importantly, sanitation and wealth has advanced considerably since the flu of 1918.

I will be really really surprised if the bird flu kills a whole lot more people than die of the regular flu every year.

In a normal year, about 20,000 people in the US die of the flu. In some years, this rises to as high as 40,000. I doubt that the bird flu will kill more than 100,000. While that would be a bummer, it's about a fifth of the number who were killed in our 1918 epidemic and the US was a lot smaller then.

Over the years, flu pandemics have killed fewer and fewer people. The Gov's literature might assuage some people's worries (check out the sweet chart showing the old 1918 spike, but do recall that was a wartime anomaly):

hhs.gov

Now the thing to note in the above chart is that the normal mortality for flu is around 1000 per 100K. The 1918 flu was still less than 2000 per 100K. The mortality rate has been steadily dropping for a century.

-- Carl
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