The real worry is pigs.
If it makes its way to pigs, we are in trouble. From what I understand, pigs contain a mix of avian and human receptors that make them the ideal mixing ground for crossover. Cows do not.
The real worry is pigs.
If it makes its way to pigs, we are in trouble. From what I understand, pigs contain a mix of avian and human receptors that make them the ideal mixing ground for crossover. Cows do not.
Scratch that. The question is how many days or weeks until it does make that leap.
Then the two next questions are what's the likelihood of any given pig serving as an incubator for a recombinant virus that attaches to human lung epithelial cells, and how deadly is that virus. Run that experiment every day for six months at a few farms and you might get lucky. Run it everywhere in the country and we're S.O.L.
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20240408/cdc-issues-...
With pigs...the risk is a mutation occurs within a pig that then transmits to humans that allows humans can transmit to other humans.