If pigs reproduced and mutated as rapidly as viruses then yeah, we would probably need to plan around the eventuality that they would develop wings and escape their pens.
Not answering the question. Is there some small gene change that we're specifically worried about here or was GP wildly speculating?
> reproduced and mutated as rapidly as viruses
HIV spreads in similar ways afaik (some fluids, I don't know the details of Ebola but it's not respiratory), yet that hasn't gone airborne in decades. I'm well aware that pigs don't get a million offspring each, but it doesn't seem like a common event for viruses to completely change their mechanism overnight either. Hence the quadrillion odds I mentioned, I was indeed referencing that they mutate so much, and yet...
> Is there some small gene change that we're specifically worried about here
Yes. A single gene change allows for airborne Ebola transmission. This gene change has occurred in the Reston strain, which luckily does not cause symptoms in humans.
> reproduced and mutated as rapidly as viruses
HIV spreads in similar ways afaik (some fluids, I don't know the details of Ebola but it's not respiratory), yet that hasn't gone airborne in decades. I'm well aware that pigs don't get a million offspring each, but it doesn't seem like a common event for viruses to completely change their mechanism overnight either. Hence the quadrillion odds I mentioned, I was indeed referencing that they mutate so much, and yet...