Here we go again.
There has been a certain amount of news around about an outbreak of an H5N1 influenza. It’s gotten the name “bird flu” because it’s widespread in wild birds, and it’s been running wild through domestic chickens. You may have noticed egg prices. They’re not dying because the bird flu is killing them. Instead the Department of Agriculture is killing them so the bird flu won’t kill them, leading to almost 140 million birds being culled in the last year.
So, failing any other message from this article, let me say:
DON’T PANIC
(Seriously, is there a friendlier font than Comic Sans?)
Of course, not everyone has taken that advice. Governor Gavin Newsom in California has already declared an emergency, and FACT, a humane farming advocacy group, says we need “urgent action to prevent a public health crisis“.
So what is this all about?
This bird flu, or more formally avian flu, is an H5N1 influenza virus. The “H5N1” refers to specific surface proteins that affect how the virus can invade and infect cells. (Grok has a nice summary.) Basically it’s like telling you a person has blue eyes and brown hair — it’s just a description of the virus and how it interacts.
What we do know is that this particular variant of the H5N1 virus subtype — I’m just going to call it H5N1 from now on — primarily infects birds. Now a whole lot of my reporting on Covid in 2020 actually applies here, so I’m going to link you back for the details, but the high points are:
- it’s an influenza virus. It’s the flu.
- it’s reasonably transmissible, with an R0 of about 2.8 — worse than most flu but similar to the 1918 “Spanish” flu, comparable to Covid, not nearly as transmissible as polio or measles. (You can look back at this article for a more complete description, but basically R0 is how many people are likely to catch a virus from one subject with the virus.)
Hellbound and Down 