What happens When the Bird Flu Gets Here?

[leftyladyfrommo]

Do we simply kill all of our wild birds? Now that's a really depressing thought, isn't it?

Bad situation in Africa right now. The bird flu has hit hard and those people don't have much in the way of reserves. So many there are undernourished or have HIV. And there is the drought that is wiping so many people out.

What is it with Africa? Why do they always seem to get hit harder than anywhere else on earth? If a pandemic hit there it could wipe out practically everyone on that continent.

I think I need to go rent a Monty Python movie.

[Changenow]

1. Nothing happens

Just like Katrina.

[Skittles]

2. yup

certainly we know we are on our own

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. We might be able to save ourselves if we can get a Democratic

congress installed before it hits. Just my two cents.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. I think that is what is bothering me.

Nothing every happens.

We don't do anything anywhere. Just let the situations roil on and see what happens.

Maybe the idea is to let the rest of the world just self-destruct.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. We hope like hell that FEMA is not assigned to it.

[MadMaddie]

5. We will survive.....

History is always a good indicator of how these pandemics run..it will run it's course...how many people will be infected and survive or die......who knows...

There was the Influenza Pandemic of 1918.....

http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/

If you like PBS.....
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/


Africa is the forgotten continent....no oil...and black (It's sad to say that)


BTW if you like crazy funny movies....
Scary Movie 1,2,3 are very funny mindless movies....

Hang in there....all of this too shall pass....:grouphug:

[FearofFutility]

16. Remember, it's not a pandemic yet. n/t

[MadMaddie]

17. Valid point......

It is not at the point...

Interesting Factoid:
The interesting thing about the 1918 Influenza Pandemic it was spread by soldiers returning home from WWI.....

[FearofFutility]

19. I recently read The Great Influenza by John Barry

It's about the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. It helped me to understand why there is so much concern about bird flu. I highly recommend it.

The bird flu is in Iraq......

[MadMaddie]

20. I read it also....

very good read!!!


I did hear that the flu is in Iraq....History always repeats itself if you are not vigilant!!!

[nomo]

6. Burgers anyone?

Well, by all reasoning Mad Cow must be rampant in America (unless you believe it only happens to isolated calves from Canada.) You can bet Bird Flu will be treated just like that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Welcome to DU *Wave*

[bigwillq]

11. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[OnionPatch]

27. Welcome

:hi:

No burgers in this house, no way....we don't like prions. Bird flu will be harder to avoid.

[Bluebear]

8. We're on our own. Katrina taught us that. nt

[mainer]

10. It will inevitably spread among wild birds. That's not controllable.

So we won't do a anything like try to kill all the wild birds. What we have to do is keep our domesticated birds from getting infected. (Don't sleep with your chickens!)

The reason Africa is a concern is that people there live in close proximity to their poultry. And they rely so heavily on poultry and eggs for protein. Africa could be the place where there's finally incubation of a human-to-human transmissable strain.

[leftyladyfrommo]

12. I have seen reports on how closely our poulty industry is

watching this. And all the protective messures they are taking. The birds are indoors and people have to put on protective gear and go thru all kinds of special baths before they are even allowed inside.

And not many of us have chickens in our yards.

[smartvoter]

24. Go rural, and there are chickens in almost every yard. nt

[MissB]

25. The popularity of small flocks of chickens in city yards

has increased in recent years.

[leftyladyfrommo]

14. When that first wave of bird sickness moved across the US

I heard a report that when it comes to wild birds that the first wave kills a lot of them. But that they build up defenses quickly and also come back quickly. Maybe because they procreate quickly and the stronger ones are the ones to survive.

[SaveElmer]

13. No need to cull wild birds...

Protect poultry flocks...

[meisje]

28. How long will it have been here before we find out about it??

[SaveElmer]

29. Pretty quick I imagine...

There are monitoring stations already set up for any possible points of entry...primarily Alaska. It is by no means guaranteed it will get here, but if it does I suspect we will hear right away.

The danger to humans from wild birds is almost 0.

[LibertyLover]

15. Price of KFC

chicken bucket doubles in price - no matter what really happens with the bird flu.

[henslee]

18. We will do the funky chicken.

[oscar111]

21. AFRICA's PUBLIC HEALTH

services cut to shreds by Globalism, from what i hear.

[henslee]

22. explain?

[oscar111]

30. new procorporate governments create a probusiness climate

by cutting social spending, in order to cut taxes. same as here. Only more so.

[henslee]

31. Ahh, thanks. nt

[fed-up]

23. Here's what happened in Chico, CA during the Spanish Flu, a good read

no chance of killing all the wild birds here as the Central Valley in California is a stop on the Pacific Northwest Flyover for migrating birds...

watch for prices of all non-chicken meats to rise

we plan on growing our own pig this summer...


http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=oid%3A36711
Outbreak past
How Chico survived the Spanish Flu

When the plague came to Chico, it was heralded not with anguished proclamations of doom, but with a joke, the kind of lazy one-liner dreamed up by a bored reporter who was trying to cram some humor into a public service blurb. On Oct. 7, 1918, the Daily Enterprise, one of two daily papers in Chico at the time, broke the story in a seven-line item buried on page 7, just above an ad for Castoria castor oil.

"SPANISH INFLUENZA STARTS WITH SEVEN: The latest fashion in diseases is with us. Dr. Baumeister reported this morning to the city health officer that seven cases of Spanish Influenza were located in Chico."


And with that, the greatest pandemic in modern history made its first local appearance. It caused little stir, made nobody's hair stand on end and caused almost nobody to make preparations for what was to come. There had been a story or two in the weeks before of a sickness that was making the rounds of Army camps and East Coast cities, but thanks partly to a governmental campaign to underplay its magnitude, the threat seemed fuzzy and remote. The flu may have been a killer, but it somehow lacked the emotional punch of stories depicting gas-shrouded battlefields in Holland and France, where almost 2 million American soldiers were taking part in World War I. The country's full attention was focused on winning that war, and no one was in the mood to be distracted by some foreign germ, especially in an era when modern medicine was thought to have all but conquered pestilence.

That was the beginning of October 1918, the deadliest month in American history, when an estimated 195,000 Americans succumbed to a form of Influenza that is thought to be in some ways similar to the H5N1 Avian Flu, today's "latest fashion in diseases." In terms of pandemic death, Chico was lucky in 1918. But it wasn't immune....

[tom_paine]

26. BushGuv response will be incompetent, as usual

It would be bad.

Hopefully, this won't happen.