This year, there has been a proliferation of avian flu outbreaks across the world. While there have been few recorded cases, if they would make the jump to humans they could spread extremely quickly. Furthermore, this year has been an epidemic year for H7N9. The infection totals up to this point are the most of any of the 4 complete outbreaks over the years, and there are still months to go.
Far more troubling, China has simply stopped recording cases. Over the past years, China has provided daily updates of case totals. However, over the past month there has been literal silence, with only 2 provinces, Hunan and Hubei provinces reporting cases. These areas, rural areas in central China were there have been few cases in past epidemics have been reporting up to 20 cases each. What is really worrying is how many have been exported from other provinces.
For example, when Guangdong province was still providing updates, they estimated ~14 cases by December. At that time, there had been numerous cases exported to other provinces.
Even the official government health registry has been censoring information, as the most recent infectious deseases release has literally kept H7N9 off the list
https://*******.com/forum/forum/china-h7n9-outbreak-tracking/769823-can-china-keep-track-of-h7n9-avian-flu-cases-still-no-official-public-report-for-december-2016-from-nhfpc ********com/2017/02/the-skies-arent-they-only-thing-hazy-in.html
Because of this, and the continued (though diminished) spread of Zika virus, I think that we should raise the pandemic alert level to 2.
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