Mark Hitchcock: Pestilence To Come?

Are Worse ‘Pandemics’ Looming Just Over The Horizon?

Mark Hitchcock

I was surprised this week while reading our local newspaper, the Daily Oklahoman, at breakfast. I saw a major headline about the rising fears of a bird flu pandemic.

Now, this is something that seems to be flying under the radar. I talked to my wife later, and she hadn’t heard anything about it—most people haven’t.

As I searched online, here’s a sample of the headlines I found:

• The spread of bird flu virus on US dairy farms alarms WHO
• What to know about the latest bird flu outbreak in the US
• Just One Human Is Infected by Bird Flu in the US. More Cases Are Likely

• Could Avian Influenza Be The Next Covid-19?

Now, over the last decade, bird flu cases in mammals have been on the rise, and that’s the real concern. When it comes to humans, the Associated Press reports in their article:

Since 2020, the virus has been spreading among more animal species — including dogs, cats, skunks, bears and even seals and porpoises — in scores of countries.

In the U.S., this version of the bird flu has been detected in wild birds in every state, as well as commercial poultry operations and backyard flocks. Nationwide, tens of millions of chickens have died from the virus or been killed to stop outbreaks from spreading.

This bird flu, avian flu, or H5N1, is not new. According to Forbes, “The highly pathogenic avian influenza subtype H5N1 was first identified in Southern China in 1996 during an outbreak in domestic waterfowl, and it resulted in more than 850 human infections with a mortality rate greater than 50%.”

That is sobering. This isn’t like COVID, which carried a very low death rate; the H5N1 reportedly carries a rate of 50%. There was an outbreak of this bird flu in Hong Kong in 1997. From 2003 to 2018, human cases were reported from 16 countries, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

Now, these diseases that come from animals to humans are called “spillover diseases” or “Zoonotic Diseases,” and about 70% of the new diseases in the world are of this variety.

One article I read this week said, “61% of the 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans originate with animals. These include Asian flu, dengue fever, Ebola, bird flu, HIV, West Nile fever, yellow fever, and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Guardian made some astonishing statements in an article they published earlier this week:

Last week, the World Health Organization raised fears about the alarming spread of the H5N1 strain of influenza that is causing millions of cases of avian flu across the globe. This outbreak began in 2020 and has led to the deaths or killing of tens of millions of poultry and has also wiped out millions of wild birds.

Most recently, the virus has spread to mammal species, including domestic cattle which are now infected in 12 states in the US, further increasing fears about the risks to humans.

“It means that the risks of the virus getting into more and more farm animals, and then from farm animals into humans just gets higher and higher. The more the virus spreads, then the chances of it mutating so it can spread into humans goes up and up. Basically, we are rolling the dice with this virus.”

Now, no one knows what will happen with this bird flu. But we do know that the Bible predicts in the end times that deadly plagues and pestilence are going to be catastrophic and sweep the globe.

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