H5N1 avian influenza has climbed “the first step of the pandemic stairs,” in the words of virologist Thomas Peacock: it has improved at making copies of its genome in mammals. The virus has been circulating in US cattle since perhaps November.
Irony alert: Florida, where leaders think it's great to get #COVID19 to build up your immunity, is taking emergency actions to prevent cattle from being imported with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. Apparently, it's healthy for humans to get infections but not for cows. 🙄 #HPAI#H5N1
"The Raw Milk Institute called the warnings "clearly fearmongering." The institute's founder told the LATimes his customers are specifically requesting raw milk from H5N1-infected cows."
This is an example of how minimizing COVID is destructive to public health far beyond COVID.
Seems an example of natural selection at work, honestly.
"The Raw Milk Institute called the warnings "clearly fearmongering." The institute's founder told the LATimes his customers are specifically requesting raw milk from H5N1-infected cows."
"This is an example of how minimizing COVID is destructive to public health far beyond COVID.”
"Raw milk enthusiasts are doubling down on the claimed benefits and safety of their favorite elixir, and say the government warnings are nothing more than “fearmongering.”" 🙄 #h5n1#hpai#birdflu#milk
👀 "Mark McAfee, founder of Fresno’s Raw Farm and the Raw Milk Institute, said his phone has been ringing off the hook with “customers asking for H5N1 milk because they want immunity from it.”" #h5n1#hpai#birdflu#milk
After 10 months off for my science journalism fellowship at MIT I’m jumping back into infectious disease reporting and uh boy I’m not gonna be bored am I?!
Here's a first story on #h5n1 in cows (and I'll try to write a thread later):
My timeline is currently a mix of the #MetGala, the unfolding escalation of genocide in #Rafah, images of floodings and worsening climate catastrophe, news of the incoming #H5N1 crisis and the current #Covid public health crisis, and the fascist police state cracking down on principled students in the imperial core.
So yeah.
Pretty dystopian.
We have now achieved Hunger Games levels of reality.
“The genetic data is clear that once this strain of bird flu—H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4 genotype B3.13 —hopped into cattle, it could readily spread to other mammals. The genetic data links viruses from cattle moving many times into other animals: There were five cattle-to-poultry jumps, one cattle-to-raccoon transmission, two events where the virus moved from cattle to domestic cats, and three times when the virus from cattle spilled back into wild birds.”
The USDA appears to be playing reassurance games. They tested 30 samples of ground beef in states where dairy cows have tested positive and from that, decided to proclaim "These results reaffirm that the meat supply is safe."
Texas alone has 12+ million head of cattle. I would not expect H5N1 to be widespread among beef cattle at this point, but what we do know is that cows from infected dairy herds have been culled and shipped forward to their new life as beef stock.
I fully expect that H5N1 is roaming around in beef cattle at this point. I do not expect it is widespread enough that what might actually be a 1 in a million sampling effort will find it. It's like putting your hand into a haystack and expecting to grasp the needle on the first try.
The US government appears to be making every effort to not collect meaningful data and not take action at a level which would impede the spread of the virus throughout the whole of the US beef industry.
Right now, if you tested 30 random people in the US for Covid with a PCR test, there is a good chance you wouldn't find it. There are times during the pandemic when that has not been the case, where the weekly incidence of Covid was on the order of maybe 1 in 20 individuals. You would not proclaim from those results "Covid is gone, it has completely vanished from the earth!"
🇺🇸 US: Hospitals no longer required to report COVID-19 data to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Reporting removed or made optional “in an effort to reduce burden.” 🤦♂️
CDC said it is encouraging “ongoing, voluntary reporting of hospitalization data.” It will begin making those voluntary data available for online viewing beginning May 10, per its COVID Data Tracker webpage.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. has recorded more than 6.9 million hospitalizations and nearly 1.2 million deaths attributed to COVID-19.
"We applied it retrospectively to samples from three plants where springtime increases were identified. The H5 marker was detected at all three plants coinciding with the increases."