[Darryl_P]

Would anyone care to give an explanation for their choice? I'd be particularly interested in those who said over 50%.

I figure it's more than 1% because we've only seen this kind of flu epidemic among birds (developing into H5N1 viruses affecting humans) once before (as far as I know) and in that case it turned into the Spanish flu pandemic. So based on the data we have we're 1 for 1. If anyone knows of any other cases with similar bird flu outbreaks that did not lead to a pandemic I'd be very interested in a link.

It's probably not more than 5% for two reasons:

1) As someone already pointed out, our technological preparedness is much more advanced than in 1918, even if we can't make a vaccine until we get ahold of the actual deadly virus which doesn't exist yet.

2) There are many levels between an outbreak among birds and a full scale pandemic and so it would stand to reason that it could stop at the 2nd last or 3rd last levels with high probabilities, even if we haven't experienced that before. It's like having experienced a category 5 hurricane in your lifetime but no category 1,2,3, or 4. You still have to assume that the lower levels are more likely even though your one and only data point is a 5.

Any and all thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.