Re: OT? Dairy flu

On Sat, 25 May 2024 12:49:10 -0500, RonO <rokimoto@cox.net> wrote in
<v2t8an$2vo1m$1@dont-email.me>:

On 5/25/2024 9:49 AM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

RonO <rokimoto@cox.net> wrote:

The CDC issued an alert yesterday that they were initiating planning
for "possiblity of increased risk to human health" from the dairy flu.
 The CDC has screwed up by the numbers in terms of evolution of the
virus and the threat to humans.  They knew from the first detections
that humans were being infected, but they didn't initiate testing and
contact tracing.  Humans had already likely spread the virus to other
dairy herds for some time.  They knew from the first sequencing
results that many states did not get cattle but ended up with the
virus.  People were the obvious vector for spread of the virus between
herds.  We have known for years that the flu virus only survives for
around 5 hours on the skin and maybe up to 12 hours on clothing, but
we also know that you have to be infected within a few minutes of
getting it on your skin or clothing because the virus doesn't seem to
be infective after a few minutes on those surfaces.  The virus
survives the longest on hard surfaces and is infective off those
surfaces for up to 24 hours, but the poultry farms that were infected
by the dairy virus in the same counties as the infected herds would
have had little reason to exchange equipment.  Infected humans likely
took the virus to those poultry farms.  The two known human cases were
shedding infective virus.  The CDC has understood this from the very
beginning of their involvement, but they failed to act on it.  They
claim that it isn't their policy to force testing onto farm workers,
so they never checked to determine the rate that humans were being
infected even though there was ancedotal evidence of other dairy
workers with red eye (eye infection).  The crazy thing is these red
eye individuals can infect other humans.  They got infected, and they
are shedding virus.  If the CDC had started testing and contact
tracing they would already know how the other herds and poultry flocks
got infected.
>
What they needed to do was identify all the infected herds and
quarantine the herds and farm workers, but the USDA and CDC were not
interested in contact tracing and tracking down additional cases.
They both claimed to rely on farm reporting.  This is stupid.  The FDA
tested milk products from 38 states.  They tested products that came
from milk processing plants in those states and found 17 states with
H5N1 positive milk samples, but would not release the names of the
states because they claimed to only be worried about the safety of the
food chain. Pasteurization was found to kill the virus.  When the FDA
finally did release the names of the states a couple weeks later it
was found that 9 new states not yet identified as having positive
dairy herds had produced milk products that were positive for the
dairy virus.  3 of the states already known to have infected herds
were not found to have positive dairy products, so they likely missed
some positive states of the 38 tested.  The CDC could have predicted
the results because they started to monitor waste water and most of
the new states that were found to have positive dairy products had
also shown flu virus in the waste water.
>
The CDC knows that the longer that they allow humans to be infected by
the dairy virus the more likely that it will evolve into a strain that
will start killing people.  Currently the infected humans only have
mild eye irritation (the virus infects mammary glands and apparently
tear ducts).  The initial sequencing results indicated that there were
already variants of the virus with mutations that would make them more
infective in mammals, but they were minor variants at the time of the
sample collections.  As the virus adapts to cattle these variants are
probably the most likely to be selected for.  The virus is infecting a
lot more herds than they are tracking, and it is evolving in all those
herds and the dairy workers are exposed to that evolving virus.  I
should note that the cats that got infected by the dairy virus had
high mortality because the virus infected their brains.  Influenza
virus is normally a respiratory virus, but if this virus adapted to
infecting human brains that would be a real tragedy.
>
So instead of trying to limit the current spread, the CDC has decided
to prepare for human transmission of the next pandemic virus.  It
doesn't sound like they are preparing correctly because you want to
limit the first human cases with severe symptoms.  In order to do that
you have to identify them as soon as you can.  The humans currently
being infected are dairy workers, so you need to identify all the
infected herds and monitor the dairy workers and their human contacts.
 The next pandemic could have already started in one of the states
with unidentified infected dairy herds.  They need to track down the
dairies that contributed to the milk of the processing plants that
produced positive milk samples.  They need to go to the counties with
positive waste water (these include multiple sites in California that
has not yet claimed to have positive herds and several of these sites
are in rural areas surrounding the bay area, the CDC nightmare
scenario) and identify infected herds.  They need to track the
contacts of the dairy workers so that they can identify more infected
herds in states that are already known to have infected herds.  Once
they identify all the possible sources of infection they can monitor
those herds and people and then try to keep any virus from spreading
and becoming a pandemic.
>

My hot and possibly wrong takes are that they are dealing with a very
influential and somewhat litigious industry. Ask Oprah. They are also
dealing with a subset of the population induced with reactance. Tell
them not to drink raw milk and its popularity will rise. They should
ramp up H5 based flu shot production but that’s a crap shoot for
matching and effectiveness and this virus is not friendly to eggs.
 
 

The dairy workers were resistant to be tested.  Many were illegal aliens
and didn't want to be interviewed nor go to a doctor.  The Dairy owners
were reluctant to participate because there was no incentive for them to
do so, and the USDA policy was to depopulate poultry flocks and all
poultry within a mile of the infected flock.  The poultry flocks that
were infected with the dairy virus were all depopulated.  6 and a half
million layers in Michigan alone.  Multiple turkey flocks have gone down
in Minnesota and have had to be depopulated, and Minnesota is one of the
states that had positive milk products, but they do not admit to having
infected herds.  Minnesota also has 3 positive waste water locations in
the state.
 
So there is a lot of politics involved, but the end result is that the
virus has been allowed to spread, and there doesn't seem to be any
movement in trying to stop the spread.  Multiple waste water sites
around the bay area in Northern California are claimed to be above
average in influenza content of the waste water (the claim is that they
are orders of magnitude higher) but there isn't any claims that they are
testing dairies in those counties.  The nightmare scenario is that
patient zero is in the bay area and their contacts board an
international flight as the virus takes hold in San Francisco before
anyone notices.
 
One thing of note is the infamous masking requirements and social
distancing required for Covid was found to work extremely well to stop
influenza infections.  30,000 to 70,000 people usually die of influenza
each year in the USA, but only a minimal number of fatalities occurred
during the masking required during Covid.  It tells us that we could
probably save around 40,000 people a year if we masked up during flu
season, and had the surface sanitation policies in action.  My take is
that the biggest advantage of masking is that if an infected person is
required to wear a mask they deposit a lot less virus into the
environment around them by sneezing and coughing.
 
Ron Okimoto

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4684694-mice-bird-flu-raw-milk/

Mice experienced high levels of bird flu after being given raw milk: Study

Is this the flu you are referring to?  (Wish you'd source your info...)

(I live in the SF bay area, but I don't drink unpasteurized milk.)

ObOrigins:
The _fact_ that diseases evolve is part of the _fact_ of evolution.  When
people talk about how evolution is "only a theory", they get it wrong:
the _theory_ of evolution is the scientific theory explaining the
_observed fact_ of evolution.

--
-v