from another post I’ve made to Agonist
Maps to date show outbreaks do not follow ways birds move. (Static over summer, inc period of flightlessness for bar-headed geese, then some southward trends.) No bird movements shown to fit the patterns.
Watching the blue dots on penquinzee’s animation (glad someone has time for all this!) helps show this too; v nifty. Map of confirmed h5n1 poultry franken-flu in migratory birds would also be illuminating; so too indications re numbers of birds, and their condition (dead, not flying, seeming typical).
I’ve predicted elsewhere: h5n1 poultry flu in wild birds will fizzle as it’s done in past outbreaks, and recently at Mongolian lake (and Qinghai, after monstrous flare up).
There will be continued outbreaks in and near poultry, with occurrences looking pretty random, but fitting spread by trade, legal and otherwise.
Vaccinations have been thought to create “silent epidemics”; where vaccinations employed, the h5n1 poultry flu virus will persist (seem to have helped it remain in China for a decade. Maybe – maybe – persisting like this in Thailand now, in which case maybe not good idea for Russia to import Thai chickens [not sure if already started, in which case….]).
Where vaccinations not used, there may be more outbreaks, but with eradication of infected poultry flocks, and biosecurity, these may be controlled, again as has happened with high path bird flus (inc this one in HK, back in 97).
Few if any migrants arriving in winter areas to south will be found to have h5n1, despite extensive testing [from Alaska west to Europe]; too few to cause outbreaks in gatherings of wild birds, let alone in poultry.
Not really crystal ball gazing; more based on what’s happened with h5n1 poultry flu so far.