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2009-12-09 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

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Posted by Bobby 2009-12-09 05:38|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 Someone wanted to use the rapidly ageing stock of (expensive, state bought) Tamiflu.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2009-12-09 08:00|| 2009-12-09 08:00|| Front Page Top

#2 H1N1 was always just a useful "dry run", for all the national and international preparations for the Avian flu, the real threat.

Right now, the obstacle for H5N1 to become H2H is that
H5 viruses can only infect the ciliated ("having a margin or fringe of hairlike projections") cells in the mouth and nose, and a human-to-human transmission would need it to bind with non-ciliated type of cell as well.

It would be highly unlikely to make this adaptive double mutation by itself, so will likely get it by sharing gene segments with another variety of influenza already able to do this. Such recombination happens with considerable frequency in nature.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-12-09 08:33|| 2009-12-09 08:33|| Front Page Top

#3 I've started seeing a few articles expressing concern about a third wave of infections, with the third wave possibly containing the nasty mutations seen in the Ukraine, Norway and elsewhere. Recall, it hit so hard in the Ukraine that they locked down the country. The Wife family will be getting inoculated against H1N1 next week, when all are home for the winter break, even if it gives us only partial immunity to the evolving virus.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-12-09 09:30|| 2009-12-09 09:30|| Front Page Top

#4 With pandemics this widespread, there are likely to be 4 waves, with possible mutations between each wave. But as 'moose points out, the huge risk is that during one of those waves, avian flu picks up human-human transmissibility from repeated interactions with swine flu.

Posted by lotp 2009-12-09 19:48|| 2009-12-09 19:48|| Front Page Top

#5 Tamiflu may not even be effective at all:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec07_2/b5106

Posted by European Conservative 2009-12-09 19:57|| 2009-12-09 19:57|| Front Page Top

#6 ION PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > GLOBAL TIMES.cn > EIGHTY PERCENT OF H1N1 DEATHS IN CHINA ARE PREGNANT WOMEN [200 "official" swine flu deaths times 0.80 = 160 preggers]. Rest are mostly ELderly or Chin already in poor health.

Posted by JosephMendiola">JosephMendiola 2009-12-09 20:46|| na]">[na] 2009-12-09 20:46|| Front Page Top

#7 The Ukraine Bird flu was a politically motivated fake.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2009-12-09 22:35|| 2009-12-09 22:35|| Front Page Top

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