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Comment by lloydjones | Hacker News Reader

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lloydjones·

I’ve read mixed ideas on this but:

Is bird flu “bad” (for cows and humans) because of higher mortality?

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According to Google, the mortality rate is around 50%, but contact with infected specimens is^H^Hwas rare.

Having an anti-vaxxer in charge of public health may not have been the best decision.

Bird flu was not historically routinely tested for in humans except rarely in cases of severe illness. I don’t think it’s reasonable to believe the mortality rate, if it started spreading and was measured properly, would be much worse than Covid (<5%).

The infection rate was quite low due to the rarity of contact between wild birds and humans. Now that it's in cows … I guess we'll see what happens. I'm sure it will all turn out fine and we'll have a laugh about it later.

I never said it would be “fine”. If it is as bad as Covid, that would be millions dead. Perhaps it could be twice as bad. However, that is still a CFR of under 5%, nowhere near 50%.

Electing a person who disagrees with all Scientist was not the best decision.

Electing a person who agrees with all Scientists would not have been the best decision either

That strawman doesn't really exist, accepting the scientific consensus and believing in the validity of science are not equivalent to "believing all scientists," but the people who believe all vaccines are fake and climate change is a communist hoax (who mistrust all scientists) do.

These things are not equivalent, one is clearly more harmful than the other.

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