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So why aren’t we doing round up of the week?
Because something rather big has come up which we think our informed and discerning readers might want to know about
Which is?
That this Covid-19 pandemic , which you may well have noticed, could be followed by a flu pandemic of equally awesome proportions
Heavens-where did you get that from?
Well according to Manuel Ansede of El Pais, there’s a nasty little flu virus called H5N8 which has just learned to jump the species barrier from birds to humans, and so could be heading our way quite soon
How does he know this?
Because he’s been reading the Journal Science, which is to the world of Learning what Dom Perignon Champagne is to the world of drinking. Quite near the top,in other words.
And what do they say?
Two Chinese scientists from the same team that first identified Sars-Cov-2 back in 2019 have warned that H5N8 has the potential to do the same sort of thing
But isn’t that just in birds?
Quite a lot of birds, actually. Up to now it has caused outbreaks in birds in 46 countries. But, so far birds only, sort of.
Sort of?
Well, a new variation of H5N8 jumped the barrier and infected 7 humans in Astrakhan. Ok, no one seemed to have symptoms, so far. But what worries George Fu Gao and Weifeng Shi is the trend of the mutation pattern which they think might make a species jump increasingly likely
But surely it’ll just be a bad cold?
Well.. there was the little matter of Spanish Flu in 1918 which killed 50 million people, which more than the First World War times over. Thjen there was the Hong Kong outbreak of 1968, which…
OK, I get the picture What should the average citizen do?
Well, learn Spanish, Because the article below is written in that language. Or get a translator app. And after that-follow the story. Stay alert. Cuidarte.
#h5n8 #sars-cov-2 covid-19 influenza #pandemic
Learning, Science and Society 