https://xcancel.com/PeterHotez/status/1873162034201960946
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A Bluesky post
So we are screwed?
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It was ment as a fun post, but as some people are genuinely scared. H5N1 is nasty BUT human infection is EXTREMELY rare. There have been less than 1k cases in 20y. You are 80 times more likely to die from lightning strike. If you don’t carry lightning rod around you should not worry.
https://subium.com/profile/volberg.bsky.social/post/3lf5uqfukze2u
Bluesky is funny. The libs are always so excited to shit on Trump - they didn’t even shit on the OP and he really deserves it. He’s impervious to knowledge and reason.
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Peter Jay Hotez (born May 5, 1958) is an American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health, vaccinology, and neglected tropical disease control. He serves as founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also Director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics. He also serves as a University Professor of Biology at Baylor University.
What worries me is viral recombination.
The mild strain and the more severe strain can infect the same animal and recombine into a totally new strain with traits from both of its components. The flu is especially notworthy for being a virus that uses recombination to evolve. And why stop there? An animal infected with bird flu and the current dominant seasonal flu strain can also produce a new strain from their recombination!
Maybe, maybe not. We’d need a virologist who has studied this virus to be able to determine if that is possible. The two mutations may be in regards to the same protein, for instance, in such a way that they may not be able to recombine in such a way that they both work.