This is getting a little worrisome. I try not to fret over upcoming pandemics. They scare me, but they don’t frustrate me as much as the direct consequences of man’s inhumanity towards man.
I checked in on the Agonist, and their top post is a link to their own message board devoted news of the H5N1 outbreak at Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve. Wikipedia notes the progress of avian bird flu for the past few years, and it’s notable that it seems to have jumped into the wild migratory fowl (specifically bar-headed geese) from the domestic poultry. It’s probably always been present, but thinking about migratory patterns in the spread of H5N1 is a spooky reminder.
There might be 121 humans dead in Gangcha County, Qinghai Province, but it’s been officially denied by the Chinese government. It has been confirmed that over 1,000 migratory birds have been found dead of H5N1 in the area, far more than the 178 birds originally reported.