If you look at the mortality rate for confirmed cases, though, it is running at over 50%.
If these things moved in a linear progression, it could take a long time to get here, provided of course, that the disease becomes readily transmissable from human to human, which so far, it has not.
Unfortunately, readily transmissable diseases do not expand linearly, but geometrically.
It is the difference between starting work for a penny a day and getting paid another penny per day each successive day, or starting work for a penny per day and doubling your wages each day.
At the end of 30 days, one person is making 30 cents per day, the other is making $5,368,709.12 (just on day 30).
The cumulative effect, similarly, is that one has made a total of $3.60, the other $10,737,418.23
Imagine for a moment each penny is a person with a lethal disease, and realize that with no constraints, a pandemic could be even more efficient, especially spread simultaneously to multiple areas through the modern convenience of air travel.
For now, thankfully, there is only cause for concern, reason to watch the progress of the disease, and try to develop the means to stop it before it becomes a threat--or contain it if it does.
If it does develop the ability to be readily transmitted from one human to another, there will not be time to do anything about it in terms of developing vaccines or pharmacologies to combat it, and actually, there would not be time to ramp up production of existing drugs to have enough to go around.
Certainly, this is not cause for panic, (there will be plenty of time for that later, if appropriate--it is never too late to panic), only concern.
As migratory birds have already spread this disease from Indochina through southern Asia and into Africa and Europe, monitoring the progress of the disease among migratory birds is a rational and prudent means of identifying the spread of the virus in the wild, both for the protection of domestic fowl and humans as well.
The people who are dying of it mostly live in third world countries where health care stinks anyhow. If they don't die but get over it like any ordinary flu, nobody thinks to check whether it was bird flu or something else.
Thanks for the very informative and interesting post to read...
But I have read elswhere, that the bird flu is caused through extensive handling of the infected birds, their insides and outsides(those in the industry-chicken farmers, etc...). I have also read at various times that funny little diseases have originated from over in that area of the world, due strictly to a cleanliness issue. Many here refuse to entertain this idea, simply because they desire to be politically correct and therefore, think that all should walk on eggs, and don't offend someone that may be living there or some such thing. And we all thought, politically correct answers did not happen here...