Avian Flu is coming for humanity. We are not ready.
This what-if, fictional scenario is my take on the situation so far.
When a Threat Becomes a Danger
A virus that has been circulating in birds for years has recently made a jump to mammals. In the last month, it has mutated inside almost 1000 humans, changing their viral DNA to match their new hosts.
This H5N1 outbreak has been decimating populations of birds, both captive and wild. More than 100 million cases in the US alone. Vast culls are becoming commonplace in an attempt to prevent a catastrophic release of an airborne, human to human infectious disease with a mortality rate over 50%.
As a reference tool, here’s the CDC’s own history of SARS 2.0, Covid-19. Click here for more. Note that it began just before New Year’s, 2019.
Of note: January 14, 2020 WHO finds evidence of possible human-to-human transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, just a month after the first clinical patients were admitted to hospital with severe respiratory illness. And by April they are predicting hundred’s of thousands of deaths in the US alone.
Here is a report from December regarding the severe case in California.
It’s airborne, like SARS 1.0 and 2.0, however what I find somewhat more worrying, is that it’s in our food supply. In Canada our milk is pasteurized, allegedly killing the virus in the process. But live virus has been found in raw milk, poultry, eggs, and beef. Which perhaps is no threat today, but when this virus mutates, as it is currently learning in the 66 human hosts it has managed to infect in the US, then facing an airborne pathogen along with an infected and reduced food supply (as a result of mass culls), that blew in from the west on the Pacific winds, possibly originating from a nation arguably at war with the US, just not the shooting kind, raises some questions in this fiction writer about what a future war, a generational war would look like. A shooting war with America is a guaranteed loss. But how about a surreptitious war, something from Sun Tzu’s, Art of War.
Deception.
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
I have read articles stating we are already in World War III, we just don’t recognize it yet. Do your own diligence, and also have a look around the globe at some more inconspicuous places. Like the Canadian border in the arctic with Russia. Have a look at how much infrastructure the Russian’s have installed in the far north, a lightly defended Canadian landmass full of resources.
Have a look at China’s increasing land reclamations in the South China Sea, to which they immediately lay claim and build a military base upon. How about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the debt traps they make with poor African nations who have no hope to repay these loans and must forfeit their land to China, who then moves in heavy equipment and begins mining their resources, using their own people, something they wanted all along.
A War is being Waged, but the West can’t see it.
A read of the Hundred Year Marathon can provide some insight and factual reference to these “fictional” claims I’m making. I maintain that I am certainly no expert, in many things, but I take note, I listen, I read. History has shown us the patterns that lead to great conflicts, the rise and fall of corporations and civilizations, follow a well-recorded pattern of events. And so I ask you, if you were a nation of many, who could never muster the strength of America in war, who would lose in all exchanges of firepower, would you not research a different way to attack? While seeming unable to? When near, make the enemy believe we are far away?
From the CDC website. Genomic sequencing results reveal the virus is related to avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses detected in birds in BC, which belong to clade 2.3.4.4b, genotype D1.1. The genome contains mutations which may be associated with mammalian adaptation and enhanced replication. Further genomics testing and analyses are underway at both the BC Centre for Disease Controls (BCCDC) Public Health Laboratory and the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML).
The enemy may be much closer behind our borders than we think. The prospect of a first wave of Covid as a test of virulence doesn’t seem so far fetched. Destabilize the world economy, but more importantly, get a picture of the world’s military motions, their reactions and their limitations as a result of the biological attack. Then wait. Then release a pathogen that doesn’t like humans. Give it some help though. Engineer it to mutate faster, perhaps a genetic advantage when it eventually encounters the human respiratory system, a leg up as they say. The deployment could take years, but we are patient, we are at war, and all warfare is based on deception. The virus drifts Eastward on the Pacific winds, landing in places like California, where they have recently declared a state of emergency due to the uncontrollable spread of H5N1. Washington state, Vancouver, British Columbia, where the chicken farms lining the Abbotsford valley perform mass incineration of their livelihood.
“In mid-October, B.C.’s poultry industry raised its biosecurity level to red, the highest level, after seeing cases in Washington state. With the heightened alert, farms have been disinfecting vehicles entering farms and restricting access to barns and the birds.”
Enhanced replication. Taken right from the bug’s DNA. This is gain-of-function, which makes this strain of deadly H5N1 a weapon, constructed by humans in a lab. Why? Because gain-of-function does not occur in nature. It is a genetic accelerant to aid scientists working on a virus, in order to learn more about its mutation cycle in significantly less time. To see where it will go once it’s released into the wild. Starting to sound familiar? SARS 2.0 also showed up with gain of function genetics.
Straight from the CDC
Approximately half of the over 900 human cases reported around the world since 1997 (mostly in Africa and Asia), have been fatal.
So. No news from our government about who’s working on a vaccine, which I understand could be difficult considering the virus still seems to prefer avians.
Here’s what they’re telling the health care professionals.
I mean, it all sounds very familiar. And I hope we control it. Half the population of the human species would mean a very different world for our children to grow into.
Christmas has come and gone with a bang in our household, with both our families joining us in our home. It has been a warm and (delicious) holiday season. But this H5N1 story is only interesting it seems while it’s in our backyard. (Which it is, you just can’t see it.) I tried to bring it up, to see if anyone else knows more than me, and found no interest in the subject. Good? Bad? Man I just hope I’m making up a great story for a book one day.
So the girl in intensive care at children’s hospital in Vancouver over the last few months, made news for a few days, then crickets. She’s been fighting for life. A young healthy 13 year old with H5N1, avian flu. Get used to saying it. And HOPE that I’m wrong with this fictional prelude to a future as yet unwritten.