Prepare now for a potential H5N1 pandemic | Hacker News Reader

Prepare now for a potential H5N1 pandemic

science.org

43 pointsAnon8439 comments

I’d love to see more awareness of the importance of indoor air quality this time around.

Strong agreement. Minimum safety standards for indoor air are as important as minimum safety standards for water and food.

For those interested: the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate maintains a database of indoor air quality standards worldwide [1]. It lists standards by country, and allows you to filter by pollutant. CO2 is a commonly proxy for ventilation with values <800-1000ppm typically considered to be “good”.

For the US specifically: the recently published ASHRAE 241 standard [2] provides updated guidelines for indoor air quality. This provides stronger guarantees than the weaker ASHRAE 62.1 standard [3], as it specifically focuses on reducing aerosol-based transmission of pathogens such as (but not limited to) Covid-19 and H5N1.

[1]: https://ieqguidelines.org/table?factor=iaq

[2]: https://www.ashrae.org/about/news/2023/ashrae-publishes-stan...

[3]: https://www.ashrae.org/technical-resources/bookstore/standar...

It's even more important if this finding [1] (press release [2]) turns out to be true, namely that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is not just a proxy for air quality, but that having less of it actually actively destabilizes virus particles.

Also, portable air cleaners seem to work pretty well [3].

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47777-5

[2] https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/news/2024/virus.html

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S295036202...

What does actual preparation look like for me given the experience I gained 5 years ago?

* Ensure I have a stock of masks, disposable and washable.

* Re-organize and upgrade my home office / workspace.

* Proactively prepare myself mentally by strengthening social bonds, self-care routines, and overall mental health.

* Decide if I'm going to continue baking bread or explore a new hobby.

Buy some soup and vegetables and fruit in a can. If you are sick for 2 or 4 weeks, you are self-sufficient. Instead of relying on family at your door, potentially making them sick as well.

Since the fatality rate is estimated around 50%, make sure all your affairs are in order:

* have a written will

* collect all login information for your important accounts

* collect any important paperwork

* make sure you have a good idea of the best medical facilities in your area and how to get to them

Probably a good idea to have flu tests and Tamiflu on hand as well as these are likely to be unobtainable in a pandemic situation.

How do you stock Tamiflu? Isn't it prescription only? Or is it OTC in non-US countries?

Many doctors will give you a prescription for things like this if you want to have them on hand.

The problem as I see it is that large-scale farming creates an ideal place for viruses to mutate and possibly become dangerous to us. It's pretty much inevitable that we're going to get new virus strains emerging from livestock - it's just a question of when and also how well different countries deal with it.

A global approach is the only sensible way to deal with pathogens that can spread so easily as it's becoming almost impossible for countries to control borders sufficiently (especially if birds are a vector).

Small scale farming creates a different type of ideal place for viruses to mutate and become dangerous to us because there is much more inter-species mixing. Keeping chickens & pigs in the same barn, for instance.

Yes, but there'd be less chance of mutation due to the smaller scale. By having a large concentration of animals in a smaller space (relatively), it's like hitting the fast forward button on evolution/natural selection for viruses. To counter the extra risk, large scale farms should be testing for pathogen/viruses to at least get an early warning for when there's a nasty mutation.

There can be trillions of virus cells in a single body. That's the mutation environment. Whether there are dozens or thousands of bodies makes little difference in comparison.

If you consider a single body, the selection pressure is for the virus to multiply as quickly as possible. It's when you get multiple bodies that the selection pressure is more the ability of the virus to be transmitted and infect a new host. It's by concentrating animals/people into smaller environments that we select for the greater transmission of the virus and possibly for it to be less deadly as that gives the virus more time to spread itself.

Alternatively, think that a virus in a single organism is likely to be extremely well adapted for spreading within that organism already, but it may not be adaptable to other organisms and thus not be very contagious.

H5N1 is already extremely good at spreading between birds, getting better at that is not going to increase its fitness.

It's the amount of contact between livestock & humans that we primarily care about, and that is a lot larger with a large number of small farms than it is with a small number of large farms.

Exactly the time to cut NIH funding, exit the WHO, and put a vaccine sceptic as Secretary of Health.

Obviously the work of a real genius who understands the power of using very bright lights inside the body to fight COVID.

Remember: COVID spared babies. H1N5 won’t.

Combine that with the real likelihood of a 9/11-type event due to collapse of the FBI and boy oh boy will Trump fans have a lot to answer for.

We had a 9/11-type event and many many many smaller scale terrorists events WITH a "non-collapsed" FBI!

I'm not sure what "9/11 type" event your referring to.

Saying there are still terrorists attacks, so we should gut the FBI is like saying the flu is still a thing so we should gut the CDC.

Well, maybe 9/11 itself?

Hmmm... I sort of inferred a "since 9/11" but I concede that's not actually spelled out in the comment I'm replying to, so fair enough.

That happened (the planning stages at least) before 9/11.

They'll answer for nothing, they'll blame globalists for the terrorists and renegade fauci labs for any virus.

This.

100% Reichstag fire.

When you increase the odds of catastrophe, you are also increasing the need for more authoritarian responses.

disingenuous answer not becoming of yc

This is a factual answer. We need to keep the facts here on HN, other sites are being drowned in propaganda.

To clarify: The deeply unserious way our current President tackled Covid-19 is why it got so bad in the first place. Once the Democrats took over, the plague was eradicated in short order, with vaccines, organization, and correct information. And NIH and Darpa funding is what allowed that vaccine to be created in the first place. Spare me the BS about operating warp-speed...the pharmas were doing that anyway. It was the critical mRNA research (now banned BTW) that allowed the creation of the vaccine. Facts are funny things.

Operation Warp Speed was Trump. It was a success.

What, pray tell, is disingenuous?

Sure, the comment is a bit pointed, but isn’t the GOP the party of “F%#k Your Feelings”?

What part of my comment was false?

To achieve its requests in the US, the article needs more “oomph”. Do some mildly valid math to predict death counts, economic impact, etc and then maybe the government could be interested.

Let’s go back to December 2019/January 2020.

Hunan shut itself down. There was video of hundreds of people in makeshift hospitals. Trucks with some kind of disinfectant spray were roaming the streets.

It was real-world impact. It was not theoretical impact.

It took us until March/April 2020 to start getting serious.

I strongly doubt the current federal leadership is inclined to act in a more risk-adverse way than in March of 2020.

Isn't the current federal leadership the federal leadership of March 2020, minus a few grownups?

I think many are suffering from traumatic amnesia of sorts. It took me a good few seconds after reading this to remember the makeshift hospitals.

I found the science.org link difficult to read, but this seems clearer: https://cepi.net/world-should-prepare-now-potential-h5n1-flu...

This is not optimal. We get one if these every 10 years or so. We should be always prepared, not "prepare now!" boom/bust cycling this stuff. This is new, but it is really not new. Waves of panic followed by apathy is not the way to do public health, but it is how we fund it.

Is it time to start investing in ivermectin again? I know quite a few people who would willingly buy it.

Can someone with access please upload it to Sci-Hub and/or Anna's Archive?

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