Scientists Warn of Deadly New Virus
In other news, ice is cold, sugar is sweet, and Kim Kardashian has a massive... fortune.
Remember when peak virus season used to be winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated? Well, thanks to global warming or former President Trump or out-of-control, unprecedented gain-of-function research or possibly today’s solar eclipse (I’m not even going to go there), pathogens no longer wear a watch or adhere to any sort of seasonal calendar. Spring has sprung? Bring on the bugs!
To hear the news tell it, deadly viruses are circulating like chardonnay at a book club gathering. Last week, the New York Post menacingly declared “Bird flu pandemic could be ‘100 times worse’ than COVID, scientists warn.” In case you missed it, the always brilliant Coffee & Covid’s comedian-in-chief Jeff Childers penned an epic response, but the nutshell was this: The “bird flu pandemic” involved a grand total of one (not a typo) case, with the single afflicted patient suffering gruesome, non-life threatening, possibly irritating… red eye. Not blindness or bloody tears which is actually a thing and “not usually a cause for concern” um okay or even a few minutes of mildly impaired vision. Just stoner eyes minus the getting high part.
[The patient, a Texas ranch hand who worked in direct contact with infected cattle, is resting comfortably at home. I’m sure there’s a GoFundMe out there somewhere.]
Nevertheless, in anticipation of a possible novel bird flu pandemic, CDC Director Mandy Cohen promised the Washington Post that “the whole U.S. government is taking this situation very seriously.”
It’s a situation now. One that every last congressperson, senator, governor, mayor, state legislator, and Supreme Court Justice is watching like a cat eyeing a cucumber, so we can breathe easy.
To be fair, other humans besides the red-eyed rancher have caught avian flu; according to the WHO, since 2003, 462 of them have died. In the entire world. That’s an average of 22 people annually, which if you compare it to 5,000 to 50,000 people who die every single year in the US alone of the non-avian flu we’ve coexisted with for all of ever, the bird flu panic seems a bit… extreme.
Besides, and I hate to be the one to break it to you, bird flu may be the least of our worries. Brace yourselves for this disconcerting bit of “news” (which shockingly did not come from The Onion):
First of all, can we talk about the stock photo they chose? That is not a mildly unwell woman; that gal is going to be lucky if she can muster enough strength to beg Siri to call an ambo. You know, because of the deadly virus she’s got. The one you’ve never heard of.
Like, well, all viruses, metapneumovirus is riskiest for folks with cancer or auto-immune disorders and people with chronic lung diseases like COPD.
As for the “symptoms to know,” I was sort of hoping for something like full body blisters or loss of sight and touch or maybe bleeding eyeballs so we’d know for sure we had the deadly disease, but nope. You’re going to need to be on the lookout for cough, fever, and nasal congestion. But that’s not the worst part. Get this:
THERE IS NO VACCINE FOR METAPNEUMOVIRUS.
And that’s the entire story: a virus so deadly you’ve never heard of it, with symptoms so deeply unpleasant they mimic the common cold, and there.is.no.vaccine. In the very short says-nothing article, that fact is mentioned three times. (Similarly, there’s no vaccine for the common cold. Just saying.)
By the way, all of that sound, detailed, newsworthy information in the Mirror is basically two skinny little bookends to a Covid vaccine booster promotional novella. The entire body of the deadly, mysterious virus story—without even a segue in or out—is a status update on who can get Covid boosters in England (anyone twelve and older) and where (Boots pharmacy) and at what cost (£99 and you’re on your own because the NHS quit giving out free jabs to the masses this year).
Back in December, I mocked wrote about the seasonal campaign launched by the Centers for Deadly Cock-and-Bull every fall to encourage vaccine uptake. In January, it was Disease X, the not-even-identified pathogen predicted to be precisely twenty times deadlier than Covid, despite that part about not having been identified. (We don’t hear much about that one anymore, do we? They’re probably very busy trying to identify it.)
Here’s my theory: Someday, there will be a virus (whether nature made or whipped up in a US-owned biolab in Ukraine) that is exactly five or seventeen or ninety-four times deadlier than (or thirty or sixty-six or eleventeen percent as lethal as) Covid. And then, see, they’ll have been right! They told you this exact thing was going to happen. They saw this particular microbe coming, mapped out its precise path of destruction, and most importantly, have been diligently working on a vaccine for it since Friday.
Plus you’ll get twenty percent off your entire CVS cart the day you get your shot!
The overwhelmingly optimistic, kittens-and-sunshine part of me likes to think the number of folks who’ll continue to fall for the Flu du Jour frenzy is shrinking daily. (And not because they’re dying from vaccine side-effects, pray God, but because they’re moving over to our side.) Let’s be nice to them when they get here. I know lots of you are still super pissed off about the way they treated us “conspiracy theorists” over the last few years, but if Hillary can forgive Bill for decades of flagrant two-timing, I think we can find a little grace in our hearts.
Viruses warn of deadly new type of biowarfare scientists.
I think "they" are going to have to roll out the big guns - like aliens - to get the attention of the sheep again.
There are a select few I will reserve grace for. And there are a few who I will forgive (because that is for MY mental well-being, as well as what God calls us to do), but I will NEVER EVER forget. Some of these long times besties - and I mean some of them since we were 12 years old, will NEVER EVER be a part of my life again.