I know the avian flu has been discussed here before, but the situation has not gotten better. The H5N1 virus is not a big threat to humans yet, but it is a growing concern to those who do not have fond memories of the recent pandemic.
The avian-to-cow H5N1 variant has infected about 50 humans this year with all but two traced to exposure to infected animals. One of the two exceptions is concerning because that person had viruses with mutations in sites that increase infectivity in humans. However, there is as yet no indications that the virus can be easily transmitted from human-to-human. Why a teenagerâs bird-flu infection is ringing alarm bells for scientists
The infected teenager is in critical condition with acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Not to be an alarmist but I am struck by the fact that we have an incoming president who did not deal particularly well with the last pandemic, a health department that will be run by a Kennedy who doesnât believe in vaccines, a guy named Oz running medicare who thought hydroxychloroquine cured Covid, and a general population who doesnât understand or believe in science. This has the makings of a perfect storm.
The H5N1 virus is part of the influenza A viral family, which is the same group as H1N1, the virus type that cause the Great Pandemic of 1918. It may be worth keeping in mind when considering oneâs retirement investment strategy that H5N1 is becoming an epidemic in American domestic animals and is only a few random mutations away from becoming a significant human problem. Literally a couple of rolls of the dice. Probably wonât happen. Probably.
If you are expecting it, dreading it, whatever it is, itâs not a Black Swan unless you are referring to a marriable virgin or the movie by the same name.
The earliest known reference to the term black swan occurs in the Roman poet Juvenalâs poem Satire VI , in which he describes potential qualities of a woman worthy of marriage. His line ârara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygnoâ translates to âa rare bird in the world, very similar to the black swan.â
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960 -???)
The Black Swan is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Talebâs landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we donât understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes.
A Black Swan event is unpredictable, not inconceivable. One buys insurance for example to protect oneâs self from personal Black Swans.
Again and with emphasis, the avian flu is unlikely to become a human pandemic. But there is cause for a bit of concern and it is reasonable to financially plan for the possibility of such a Black Swan event. A couple of recent findings worry me.
AFAIK, all but one human infection this year have led to minor symptoms. However, the virus from one human (called huTX37-H5N1) contained a mutation that makes it more prone to infection in mammals. Ferrets are frequently used as an animal model for human influenza. The huTX37-H5N1 variant caused high lethality in ferrets (in lab studies) and was found to be transmitted through respiratory droplets. In other words, we have a virus that went from birds to cow to human to ferret, where it can be transmitted by aerosols. Bovine H5N1 influenza from infected worker transmissible and lethal in animal models | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Also concerning is that an earlier study infecting ferrets with H5N1 directly from cows showed low lethality. Apparently the huTX37-H5N1 represents a more virulent form of the virus for at least ferrets. Higher virulence also may be evolving in cows as those in CA show higher fatality rates than elsewhere. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cows-dead-bird-flu-rot-california-heat-bakes-dairy-farms-2024-10-17/
The finding of H5N1 in wastewater is becoming more common nationally. Here is a map.
"That cow milk is getting into consumer homes, where people are disposing of it down the drain. Iâm sure you have poured out milk down your sinkâI know I have. Itâs also coming from permitted operations where people are making cheese or yogurt or ice cream, and they might be starting with a milk product that has the avian influenza nucleic acids in it.
âI want to stress that the milk in peopleâs homes that might have the avian influenza RNA is not infectious or a threat to human health.â
This is probably true, but one should understand that this is a rationalization designed to reduce anxiety, not the results of a scientific study. No one really knows the origin of the virus in wastewater. The health authorities after all are only testing people who show symptoms and perhaps the people they contacted. The actual number of people carrying the virus without any symptoms is unknown.
In any case, the data suggests that the virus is widespread. It is in birds, and if your pet dog or cat should interact with an infected dead bird or its droppingsâŠ
Reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who coined the phrase, my understanding was that black swans were totally unexpected which would exclude avian flu because it is now a known possibility, no matter how remote. In time people started calling remote threats âblack swansâ which, in my opinion, Taleb would not have considered black swans.
Phrases change. Now people say âThey were totally decimatedâ which makes no sense. The Roman punishment consisted in executing one out of every ten soldiers, âDeciâ means âtenâ or âtenth.â
As I recall (and confirmed by Wikipedia) Taleb gives WWI as an example of a Black Swan event. I believe most Europeans thought a European war was possible well before the Great War began (there had been so many after all), the timing just wasnât predictable. It may have been a Black Swan to the Chinese at the time, but probably not to Belgians.
From Wiki:
" Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as âblack swansââundirected and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of black swan events."
Were the internet and personal computers totally unexpected before AOL and Altair hit the market?
As I recall, a USian inventor, Hiram Maxim, found little interest in Europe for his electrical inventions. He decided that what would be a success was, words to the effect âa better way for these Europeans to kill each-otherâ. He set to work, and invented the first really successful machine gun.
Most of Europe, at least the general staffs and politicos, the people responsible for actuating the machine were expecting a big war sometime after 1920. As some one else said, the timing is often the element up for grabs. No one thought Franz Ferdinandâs bad day would have sparked it.
Did you read the book? There is section where Taleb talks about confirming public opinion before the war by reading pre-war archived news stories. That was the basis for calling the Great War a Black Swan event. He then talks about how actual events cloud peopleâs recollections which is the basis of your belief of what Europeans thought.
Since my recollection might be faulty as well, read the book to fact check my recollection.
The Captain
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Nassim Nicholas Taleb used to speculate with options until his idol, who had made a fortune in options, went bankrupt. I was just learning about options at the time and I was very curious about the methods he and his idoi used. Nowhere did Taleb talk about the method that I could find. I finally found out in a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell. Thinking about it I figured it was a high risk proposition, kind of like double or nothing. The way to limit gambling risk is to apply the Kelly criterion.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, âYou can learn a lot just by reading.â
The Prussian Chancellor Otto Bismarck said in 1888, âOne day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.â Seems like a pretty good prediction indicating that the upper levels of European governments considered a European war probable.
Regardless of what Taleb wrote, a lot of people were anticipating WWI. Look at the decade leading up to the Great War. The great European powers were all behaving as if a war was likely, creating alliances and rapidly building up their militaries. They may have been surprised it happened in 1914, but it did not come out of the blue. Arms Race prior to 1914, Armament Policy
In the years before WWI there were a number of regional conflicts in Europe that had the potential to explode into a world war. Thatâs no different in principle than a number of avian flu infections in humans that have the potential to explode into a pandemic. Why one is called a Black Swan event and not the other seems pretty arbitrary.
