where's the pandemic

[jorge1907]

Bird flu H5N1risk as a significant pandemic - despite all the scares and hype - appears to be fading as a possibility. WHO stats for 2007 show a clear decline and total deaths in all the years since description approximate only 200 world wide.

 

Is this yet another screw up by WHO/CDC et al.? Will bird flu H5N1 join BSE, SARS, swine flu even Ebola in the pandemic public health scare "never mind" circular file?

[Glider]

The H5N1 virus exists and can infect humans, fatally in many cases, but is not easily passed from human to human yet. But viruses mutate, so what we have is a potentialy lethal virus that is already transmissible from birds to humans, randomly trying out different combinations on the lock to human to human or even airborne transmission. If you role a bunch of dice a sufficient number of times, you will eventually get the right combination. It is only a matter of time, so the risk remains.

 

The WHO has done its job by alerting people to that risk and by helping to develop measures against it. The reduction in mortality is due largely to the measures already put in place concerning the movement and handling of infected poultry and so-on.

 

I don't think it's wise to classify the actions of the WHO as a 'screw up' because a pandemic hasn't happened yet. Alerting people to a threat in time to allow prophylactic measures to be put into place is a lot more effective than 'Oh, by the way, we've identified the thing that's killing all these people...'.

 

A fire alarm will only sound when the building is already on fire. If a fire alarm existed that would warn of a significant/impending risk of fire in time to prevent it (or at least take measures against it), would people consider it a screw up because the fire didn't happen or thousands of people didn't die?

[swansont]

How much of the hype came from the CDC and WHO, and how much came from the hypemeisters in the media?

[John Cuthber]

Remember all the fuss the WHO made about smallpox?

What was the point of that? Nobody gets smallpox anymore.

I think that was a similar screwup by the WHO.

 

(Yes, I am using irony here)

Seriously, just because the flu pandemic hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it won't.

[iNow]

How much of the hype came from the CDC and WHO, and how much came from the hypemeisters in the media?

 

Precisely.

 

If I recall, the CDC and the WHO simply released their findings and some press releases. The "hype" was created by ratings junkies in the 24 hour news rooms.

[ecoli]

The H5N1 virus exists and can infect humans, fatally in many cases, but is not easily passed from human to human yet. But viruses mutate, so what we have is a potentialy lethal virus that is already transmissible from birds to humans, randomly trying out different combinations on the lock to human to human or even airborne transmission. If you role a bunch of dice a sufficient number of times, you will eventually get the right combination. It is only a matter of time, so the risk remains.

 

I recently had a discussion about this with my professor...

 

It's likely that if the virus mutates to become more virulent, then it's transmission rates will likely go down.

[Glider]

That sounds reasonable, but is that to say that if it mutates to become more transmissible, it's likely to become less virulent?

[gcol]

Is this not simply an example of where the actions of the observer affect the result?

 

Advance publicity arousing broad public awareness of an approaching danger is surely no bad thing in principle. Sometimes admittedly it is grossly overdone, becoming a "crying wolf" media-hype scare story.

 

I would rather have too many warnings than none at all. The warnings can precipitate beneficial pre-emptive actions that mitigate the danger or even prevent it entirely. If the scare story comes to nothing, who is to say whether the scare was false, or has been avoided by appropriate action?

 

If while travelling you saw many warning signs saying "Caution, Extreme Danger Ahead" Would you not tend to seek an alternative route? If there were then no accidents because everyone avoided the danger, only a fool would say the warning signs were unecessary.

[John Cuthber]

OK, How do you propose we avoid a flu pandemic?

 

All we can hope to do is mitigate the effects when it happens. Of course no govt is going to allocate the resources needed to do that unless the people want it (well that's the idea of democracy- your mileage may vary) so it's a good thing that the likes of WHO tell people. The papers hype it up because that's what they do for a living.

[Mr Skeptic]

I would rather have too many warnings than none at all. The warnings can precipitate beneficial pre-emptive actions that mitigate the danger or even prevent it entirely. If the scare story comes to nothing, who is to say whether the scare was false, or has been avoided by appropriate action?

 

I recommend Windows Vista

[SkepticLance]

I suspect that, to a minor degree, the fact that a pandemic has not begun, is partly due to the efforts of the medics who are fighting bird flu. We now have a lot of information on how disease spreads. By using this information, and fighting the spread of bird flu, a lot of cases and a lot of deaths have been avoided.

[gcol]

I recommend Windows Vista

 

Quite. Too many warnings can be bad for your health. I fell into the trap of using an imperfect metaphor to illustrate a point, whereupon the metaphor itself becomes the discussion, rather than the original point.

 

Metaphors are illogical?