SciShow explains why 'Bird Flu Should Have Killed One Billion People'

For today's "entry worth sharing next month," I'm revisiting Vox asks 'Is it time to worry about bird flu?'

Short answer — not yet, but we need to pay attention. All the virus requires to become dangerous to people is the ability to be transmitted from human to human. Should it recombine with a human flu strain, it could acquire that ability. Then it's time to start worrying.

SciShow explains that and more in Bird Flu Should Have Killed One Billion People.

Cows in North America are getting bird flu. What happened? How did we get here? And is this the next pandemic? In this deep dive narrative history of avian influenza, SciShow takes on these questions.

For updates on bird flu from the CDC, go to https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situatio...

Hosted by: Dr. Pardis Sabeti

Correction:
38:50 This video's consultants should be listed as Kelly Hills MPH and Dr. Nicholas Evans

This is a fascinating history of not only bird flu, but other flu pandemics, SARS, and COVID-19. I am a paleontologist, so I appreciate the historical and comparative approach to science this video took. I also learned a lot of new things from this video, so it's a good day. While I won't show this to my students — it's 30 minutes too long — I can definitely incorporate some of its facts into my lecture on flu and other viruses. This includes the following image, which updates one I used to show my students.


Welcome to blogging as professional development.

By the way, listening to Dr. Pardis Sabeti mention leadership, gaining trust, and fighting misinformation as important for fighting pandemics reminds me that Hoover Cleveland shares an Ig Nobel Prize for Medical Education with "Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, Narendra Modi of India, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus...Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan, for using the COVID-19 viral pandemic to teach the world that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can."


While funny and worth pointing out when Hoover Cleveland says he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, these people are not good company and this award is not a good sign for the near future. Who knows, maybe he'll win an Ig Nobel Peace Prize for his designs on Greenland and Canada or an Ig Nobel Economics Prize for tariffs. We'll find out this fall.

Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature. What can I write about awards season that is worth sharing next month?