I felt a little foolish after posting that the illnesses in China were avian flu because a couple days later all the news stories were claiming that it was a pig bacterial virus "swine flu" rather than bird flu. Then I saw this story claiming that because so many people have died that it may not be swine flu but something else entirely and that the world is getting all of the information about this outbreak from the official Chinese news releases only. I'm a bit more emboldened in my original statment. These outbreaks have occured in the same region as major migratory bird deaths due to the bird flu. This may indeed be the pig infection of avian flu that would be a logic step in the evolution of this pandemic. Because pigs are so similar to humans, the virus (once present in pigs) can mutate (recombine) into a form that will allow human-to-human transmission.
PS The Dow hit 10700 today. This will be the high-water mark.
