It's not at all silly! My Dad and OH have been totally paranoid about it for about a year now- I know for a fact that my Dad has got some masks off ebay for example! Anyway, there hasn't been a case of it traveling from human to human yet- only from bird to human when the human has been in very close contact with the bird. For example touching the dead bird's body like the kids in Turkey did.
That said IF the worst happened and it did mutate and travel human to human they don't know how fast it would travel or how strong it would be as the virus will be different than the one now in birds so what happens then is anyone's guess. At the moment all the defense there is are some anti-viral drugs that basically can sometimes stop you from developing full blown flu when you have the first stages but these have to be taken in the first 48 hours and more importantly for us you can't give them to babies under a year- I've researched this quite a bit at my more paranoid moments. The government is buying huge amounts of one such drug but it's not certain to work as the virus it might have to fight doesn't exist yet if you see what I mean? In previous pandemic flu outbreaks the viruses have tended to affect certain age groups in the population. Generally the old and ill but in the Great Flu epidemic in the 30s it affected young adults particularly badly for example so no one knows who will be most at risk from the potential virus as it hasn't developed yet. So if the worst case scenario happened and the new form of the virus developed and it was spreading easily in the population and was affecting kids and babies particularly the best thing for us with babies under a year to do would be to try and isolate them from others who might have the virus. If this (hopefully very unlikely) event happens I will very probably be locked in the garage with Elliott, my Mum and my 94 year old Gran if my Dad and OH have anything to do about it with them leaving us food and water parcels from a distance!
I was really worried about SARS a few years ago as I worked with a lot of students who came from Taiwan right in the middle of the outbreak but that turned out to not affect that many so I'm not panicing too much but then I'm not reading the reports on purpose as I know it freaks me out. Plus I have my Dad and OH doing that for me! Fear sells papers and reads like a good story so it's being really hyped up.
Not sure this helps but try not to worry- it hasn't happened yet and unless you live on a free range chicken farm or bird sanctuary and let Braydon play with dead or sick birds he's not going to be at risk from this form of it as I understand it.
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