Swans test positive for avian flu in North America

jacksdad wrote: Relatively mild and yet deadly low path - that's an interesting contradiction of terms. I don't get it - they know it's low path but they're playing dumb on the strain? Based on four deaths, it's not low path, and why were the others dead but testing negative? I guess they'll keep us hanging on the exact strain, if they go public at all. Would they be completely honest if it turned out to be H5N1, I wonder?

I can only figure that the swans were stressed because it was winter and the Low Path Avian Influenza added to that stress and it was an overload on their systems.

Remember Avian Influenza lives in the intestines of the birds.  When infected their digestive tract is red and raw from the cells lining it being killed by the virus.  When this happens in Winter the birds can not digest enough nutrients to keep their bodies going.

A human example would be Karen Carpenter denying herself nutrition to the point that her heart simply gave out.  Either that example or that of a human with dysentery who gets so weak that their heart quits.  Our hearts are an engine that runs on sugar.

No sugar = no heart beat.