The H7N9 Bird Flu has claimed its eighth and ninth victims, from two provinces in China that haven’t had a problem with the virus before.  And Beijing might be doing a collective face-palm after a senior military official called the Avian Flu an American Conspiracy.

Before today, the new strain of bird flu had been confined to Shanghai and the Shanghai area.  But the government announced two more deaths, this time an 83-year-old man in Anhui province, and a 35-year-old woman in Jiangsu province.  The latest fatalities are the first to come from those provinces.  A total 29 people have been diagnosed with the virus.

Most of the H7N9 trouble has been centered in Shanghai, where more than 100,000 live birds have been killed in the past week at live-poultry markets across the city to stop the spread.  Officials are considering a permanent ban on poultry markets.

And now for the fun stuff!

Senior Colonel Dai Xu of the People’s Liberation Army says the government shouldn’t even pay any attention to the H7N9 Bird Flu because..

..it’s just an American bio-psychological weapon!  Just like SARS was!

Dai wrote in his blog is convinced that the US unleashed SARS in the east in 2003, so that China would be preoccupied and could not take the opportunity to take “other actions” while America fought a two-front war.

But Dai really outraged readers by dismissing the Flu, writing that “Only a few will die, but that’s not even a one-thousandth of those who die in car crashes in China.”

The former head of Google China Kai-Fu Lee responded, “In that case, the invention of cars by the US and Germany must have been an ever greater conspiracy.”

Most of the comments were negative, but Colonel Dai picked up 40 thousand new followers on his blog, which was already well-known for his constant beating of the war drums (apparently for oil).