The H3N8 flu -- look a new one to panic about

"If it is canine influenza, being that we are in the shelter setting, all dogs will have to be euthanized.
Sun Herald Biloxi
This is spreading across the country, very sad.

texasgirl
If it mutates it can be a disease that ravages the entire continent. This is a NEW strain, something our bodies do not recognize and that's why scientists are concerned. We won't know how to fight it off and there's no vaccine. And it's here and not some other country.

The fact that the seals died last year gives the virus a chance to mutate.

I'm not being an alarmist but I wouldn't really joke about it, either.

Good find. I knew nothing about this.

It's not that our bodies don't know how to fight it off. It's still the flu. It's just that it's in a form our bodies haven't seen, so our immune systems tend to go absolutely nuts when they react to it. In effect, our own immune systems kill us, not the flu. If you survive the first infection, your body sees the next strain of it and shrugs and goes, "Ah, it's that H3N8; nice try." And it goes about the business of reacting like it would to any other flu you've ever had.

Either way, you get the flu, and it's got the same symptoms to more or less intense degree than it had in other years. For the very old and very young, it has same risks as the flu always does, and it comes with the same risks of secondary infection.