.
they picked the wrong strains for this years vaccines

this still isn't the pandemic you are looking for

Like here. The government trial test a virus on its own people first.

China Syndrome

Where else are pigs and geese keep in close proximity with no care for hygiene and spread of flu?
CHINA for the win!

A large part of China is third world with matching infrastructure.  Poor water treatment, etc.  Still not as bad as India.

Plane quarantined at JFK amid reports of sick passengers

NEW YORK (AP)  A plane has been quarantined at New York's Kennedy Airport amid reports of ill passengers aboard a flight from Dubai.
The Emirates flight landed around 9:10 a.m. Wednesday. The airline says about 10 passengers were sick and were getting medical attention "as a precaution."

Video from news helicopters showed the jet sitting on the tarmac surrounded by ambulances, vehicles and airport personnel.

Representatives of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were on the scene.

Eric Phillips, a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, tweeted that the flight stopped in Mecca, which is experiencing a flu outbreak, and "early indications point to that as a possibility."

A New York police counterterrorism division tweeted it appeared to be a "medical situation."

"Stopped at Mecca"

Incubation period?

Lots of things might be flu. Or they might not be flu. Because no one is smart enough or extreme enough to use a disease as a weapon, right?


Attached File

And we all just binged the first season of Jack Ryan, right?

I can’t make the wink smilie any larger. Would it help if I put more of them in? Would that be ok?



Is that sufficient?

Flu from the middle east in early September?

If it is flu, then it might be a novel strain.

This isn't flu season and a cluster like that would be exceedingly rare.

Mecca is currently 96 F. Not exactly conducive to the season flu spreading around rampant.

I have been an air line pilot for over 20 years. I have never seen 10 people with flu on the airplane even during the height of flu season.

Yup, just finished the whole season a couple days ago!  (Great show highly recommended!)  

Scary stuff.  Really surprised this event didn't generate more discussion here.

CDC director warns of risks of flu pandemic, urges vaccinations

$$$$$$$

They do this every year

This exactly.

From a virology standpoint, the pigs are the issue. We don't catch viruses from dogs or cats (or infect them with our illnesses), and even avian viruses don't commonly jump species. We can however, catch viruses from some genetically similar sources like monkeys.

Pigs OTOH, can be infected by human viruses, as well as avian viruses, and pigs can catch human flu variants, AND infect humans. Pigs have been the source of mutated viruses from birds and even bats, that previously didn't infect humans, but are able to now.

By having large numbers of pigs in overcrowded Chinese pig farms, AND with many farms also having large poultry populations in proximity, it increases the likelihood of a pig being simultaneously infected by both a human virus, that normally can't infect birds, as well as an avian virus that normally can't infect humans, and the 2 viruses concurrently in the same pig, mutating and producing a virus that can infect all 3 species.

Eliminating these pig farms (or changing the standards and practices in the Chinese farms) would go a long way to reducing new flu vectors.

As much as I love pork, I have to admit, if no one ate pork and all the pig farms and pig herds were eliminated, it would greatly reduce the vectors for new flu viruses.

Just got spam call about the above.