Re: January 2007 vs. January 2006
Last year as Niman point it out there was the Anatolia outbreak in Turkey
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2464&highlight=Anatolia
The major stress for me was the situation in Azerbaijan made public only few months later. The HCW where working under Phase 4 guidelines and Dr Monto proposal in January 2005 gave great results.
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6676
Now, to take Barry's analogy, the pot is heating, we see more bubbles of individual cases and more bigger bubbles of clusters.
But we are not at the boiling point still.
Most of those human cases comes from avians or mammals, some call it vertical transmission.
A pandemic unfold as lateral transmission that is human to human.
Up to now the bug dies after three transmissions. At least publically.
New strain has been identified and the situation is heating.
The main difference this year from last year IMO is that virulence of previous not so offensive bugs are on the rise.
(Chickungunya, Hemorragic Dengue, Japanese Encephalitis, even Norwalk and MRSA, etc..)
Somehow, the virulence factors of bugs have increase, specially the ones carried by the Aedes Mosquitoes is worrysome.
I believe that we have to learn good hygiene habbits more than ever, how to repel mosquitoes, how to discern the symptoms of different infections, learn how to treat those, raise our preps and keep the focus on the different strains of H5N1.
One thing is sure for me, we will have to do more deep breathing this year than last year.