• David J. Shourabi Porcel
    link
    fedilink
    2
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    That article is a sobering read. I wasn’t aware of the extent of the spread and thank you for sharing it.

    If pigs get it […]. That’s how the “spanish” flu started in the USA.

    That is indeed a theory, hypothesized in a paper from 2005 and mentioned on the Wikipedia article about the Spanish flu:

    [The hospital] also was home to a piggery and poultry was regularly brought in from surrounding villages to feed the camp. Oxford and his team postulated that a precursor virus, harbored in birds, mutated and then migrated to pigs kept near the front.

    Because pigs are more readily infected with avian influenza viruses than are humans, they were suggested as the original recipients of the virus, passing the virus to humans sometime between 1913 and 1918.

    [I fact-check as much as my time and preexisting knowledge allow. I post what I found to vouch for your comment and save other people time. I hope I don’t come across in the wrong way.]

    penguin populations in the arctic

    There are no penguins in the Arctic and the article you linked to doesn’t mention them. Where has bird flu infected penguins?