|
Re: bird flu
No. The avian flu viruses are not something you should worry about, and are more akin to Y2K than the black death it is made out to be. The H5N1, the strain that most people think of whenever one thinks of the avian flu, has such a narrow window of opportunity to become a pandemic that any attempt to worry about it is futile. If nothing was done about it, then yes, it would be a problem. But, all the things that make it deadly (it's spectrum of host availability, it's rapid mutations) are more preventable then something like the media would lead you to believe. Strains of highly pathogenic H5N1 cause the infection/mortality rate amongst birds to reach almost 100%, but that's only the highly pathogenic. The lesser pathogenic strain has been known about for years and, other than the fact that it can develop into a highly pathogenic strain, does not pose a threat.
So don't worry. Wearing masks to protect yourself is just downright idiotic and stupid. Unless you work with birds all day, relocate them often, and then proceed to rub them all over your body, you're not in danger. If you're going to bother being scared to death about whatever the media tells you to be scared about, be scared of something that actually half-way matters. Such as AIDS.
__________________
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
|
