DOWNSIZING AFTER THE COVID TECH BOOM? HOLD ON, THE NEXT PANDEMIC MAY BE ABOUT TO START

Tech companies rushing to downsize workforces following the end of the COVID-19 boom might want to apply the brakes, because we may be about to see another, much more severe, pandemic in the form of H5N1 bird flu. Of course, many will instantly brand me a fear-mongering sensationalist and be convinced the chance of another pandemic hitting so soon after the last one is too low to worry about. Fair enough, I understand that mindset completely. But, the fact is, highly troubling danger signals are emerging.

Bird flu was always the prime suspect for the next pandemic

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most experts believed H5N1 Avian Influenza, aka ‘bird flu’, was the most likely candidate to spark a global emergency. The virus, spread by migrating waterfoul, had long been a problem in both wild birds and poultry, and had, on rare occasions spread to other animals, including humans. However, no sustained human-to-human transmission had been observed. Still, scientists suspected it was just a matter of time until the virus mutated to enable this.

Because of this likelihood, according to Science.org, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of labs were conducting gain-of-function experiments with H5N1 - this included modifying the virus so that it could spread easily between mammals, including humans. The researchers involved insisted they needed to do this so that they could figure out how to combat it, ahead of the inevitable bird flu pandemic. Needless to say, many raised objections to such research, pointing out that a leak from one of the labs involved, whether accidental or intentional, could actually cause a pandemic.

A very ominous change: mink-to-mink transmission

Fast forward to 2022 and alarm bells started ringing. While most people were focused on recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic disaster, bird flu outbreaks were ravaging the global poultry industry. According to the USDA, the 2022 H5N1 outbreak was the worst animal disease outbreak in US history - something mirrored in the UK, Europe, and Japan. And, as of February 2023, the outbreak in birds showed no sign of slowing down - for example, according to Wired.com, both Argentina and Uruguay declared national health emergencies due to H5N1 outbreaks earlier this week.

However, perhaps the most concerning development took place in October 2022, when according to EuroSurveillance, H5N1 was detected on a mink farm in Spain, resulting in the culling of tens of thousands of animals, and a fundamental change in the risk analysis of the virus. H5N1 was discovered to be spreading readily among the mink. This is extremely important because mink, like their ferret relatives, have similar respiratory systems to humans - indeed, they are often used in medical research because of this. As to be expected, news of the mink farm outbreak was suppressed at the time.

From Peruvian sealions to British foxes

As if H5N1 mutating to be transmissible among mink wasn’t alarming enough, over the past months the virus seems to have started spreading among other mammalian species too. In Peru, hundreds of sea lions have died from the virus. And, while it's not unheard of for sea lions to become infected from eating dead birds, the sheer number of infections strongly suggests the virus is spreading within the sealion populations. On 6 February 2023, Peru’s National Agrarian Health Service (SENASA) also attributed the death of at least one dolphin to H5N1, while the country’s health ministry revealed the virus had killed a lion at a zoo in central Peru.

Meanwhile, authorities in the United Kingdom have confirmed that H5N1 has been detected in mammals including otters and foxes, and other countries have reported cases in animals ranging from bears and leopards to domestic cats. The evidence suggests the virus is increasingly able to spread between mammals themselves, rather than just directly to individual animals from infected birds. Considering the range of species involved, and the similarity of minks’ respiratory systems to those of humans, we could well be on the brink of seeing sustained human-to-human transmission of H5N1.

WHO tells world to prepare

Underlining the very real risk of bird flu causing a human pandemic, earlier this month, the World Health Organisation director-general Dr. Tedros Adhonom Ghebreyesus said that reports of bird flu in mammals “need to be monitored closely”, and warned the world must be prepared for the increasing risk posed by the virus.

And this is extremely bad news, because out of the few hundred people known to have been infected with the virus in the past, over 50% of them died. Some estimates even put the mortality rate at over 60%. And, remember, this is when very small numbers of people were infected, so they had access to good healthcare and the infrastructure of society was fully functional. Considering the disruption caused by COVID-19, which had a mortality rate of a fraction of one percent, imagine what would happen if a flu virus with a mortality rate of over 50% swept the world. Furthermore, such a virus would cause severe healthcare and infrastructural problems, and likely push the overall mortality rate much, much higher.

Of course, many people, myself included, think there are many highly suspicious things about the recent COVID-19 pandemic and resulting vaccination programs. Indeed, evidence is mounting that something very nefarious is going on behind the scenes, and a H5N1 pandemic commencing in the coming months will raise even more suspicions and questions. But, that is the subject of another article. The point of this one is merely to flag the possibility that we may be on the cusp of another, much more serious pandemic, and businesses should keep this in mind before making big decisions.

A return to remote everything?

So, what will a H5N1 pandemic mean for tech businesses? Well, if the developed world shut down for a virus with a mortality rate of less than one percent, it seems safe to assume it will do so again for one with a mortality rate of over 50%. In fact, we should expect much swifter and more severe lockdowns and restrictions. International, or even intercity, travel will be out of the question - tests or no tests. Remember, this virus is likely to kill over half the people it infects, even if healthcare and infrastructure are fully functional. It seems likely that the authorities won’t have such a hard time enforcing rules for a H5N1 pandemic - people are probably going to lock themselves away out of fear.

Assuming the authorities manage to keep basic infrastructure, like power, internet, banking, and food distribution, functioning, then businesses will have to pivot straight back to 100% remote work. Indeed, in a H5N1 pandemic, it is highly unlikely that anyone, save for the most critical workers, will be allowed to leave their homes. Considering there is no effective treatment or vaccine for H5N1, and the current outbreak in birds didn’t subside in summer, the lockdowns can be expected to be lengthy - perhaps far longer than for COVID-19. This means that, unless the governments want to see a complete economic collapse, they will have to introduce financial aid payments for both businesses and individuals again.

Of course, it’s easy to see that something of this magnitude could well overwhelm the authorities and lead to a complete apocalyptic collapse - something like Stephen King’s The Stand. But, thinking about that is like thinking of a nuclear war, in that there’s really no point. Everything will be over anyway. So, all we can do is assume the authorities do find a way to keep things running, and we all have to hunker down again. In such a scenario, I can envisage a seismic shift to remote work and remote consumption. Perhaps, it will also give the governments the perfect excuse to ditch the old monetary and economic system, introduce their planned central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and implement the much-talked-about Great Reset.

One thing is for sure. If H5N1 does start transmitting between humans easily, things will happen extremely fast. While we now know that COVID-19 had already spread globally months before the ‘public launch’ in Wuhan, for most cases symptoms were so mild that it was simply ignored, and the few bad cases (relative to population - I don’t mean to minimize individual cases) assumed to be severe pneumonia or similar. However, this clearly won’t be the case for a virus with a mortality rate of over 50%. The sheer number of deaths will rapidly make it clear that something very bad is happening, and I suspect many organizations, authorities, businesses, and individuals will take action on their own initiative, without waiting for orders from higher up.

So, although it is understandable that many tech companies are reacting to the apparent return to ‘normality’ as if it is long-term (returning to office-based work, cutting staff due to slowing demand, etc), every executive team should be aware of what could well be coming. We could be back to lockdowns, pandemic payments, and remote everything in the blink of an eye. And, I'm not even going to mention that Bill and Melinda Gates video...