Re: OT? Dairy flu

On 6/13/2024 6:28 AM, jillery wrote:

On Wed, 12 Jun 2024 17:23:28 -0500, RonO <rokimoto557@gmail.com>
wrote:
 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dairy-industry-must-act-faster-to-keep-h5n1-bird-flu-from-starting-a/
>
Scientific American has an opinion piece stating what I have been going
on about.  For some stupid reason the USDA and CDC decided to rely on
"self reporting" instead of going in and testing the herds and states
that likely had infected herds.  It has just allowed the virus to spread
to more dairy herds, and they have no idea of the extent of the
infection because the CDC chose to "monitor" only a few herds in two states.
>
It has been sad and the opinion piece notes that the poultry industry
has suffered because of it.  When the price of poultry products start
going up it is the USDA's and CDC's fault for not acting as they should
have acted.  You can't keep the avian flu off a poultry farm if changing
clothing and even showering in, as is required at some commercial
breeding facilities, when the worker is infected and shedding live
virus.  For a poultry farm the infected flock is depopulated (killed
off) and poultry within a mile radius of the infected flock are also
disposed of.  Several 2 million bird layer flocks have had to be
depopulated in several states, and they were infected by the dairy
cattle with a likely human intermediate.
>
They knew from day one that dairy workers were likely taking the virus
to other farms and infecting other herds, and poultry flocks, but they
only "recommended" that dairy workers and their contacts not go to other
farms if they have come into contact with infected cattle.  The kicker
is that they refused to identify all the infected herds so most of the
dairy workers in contact with infected cattle were not under the
"recommendation".  It has been sad and should never have unfolded as it has.
>
The more dairy herds that they allow to be infected, the more humans
will be infected.
>
Ron Okimoto

  I wonder if the current policies you mention above aren't consequences
of a lack of funding and a lack of political support, due to
conspiracies fallout from the Covid pandemic.

The USDA was given 800 million to control the dairy outbreak, but both the CDC and the USDA claimed that it was not their policy to require testing, so neither ever attempted to determine the extent of the spread of the virus, nor track dairy workers and their contacts.  It is obvious that most of the Dairies were infected by dairy workers or their contacts going to those other farms.  Early infections in states like Kansas, New Mexico, and South Dakota all claimed that they had not gotten any cattle from Texas, but herds in those states got infected. They have had a very good idea that the infection was being spread by humans, because of what is known about influenza survival on surfaces like clothing and skin (it remains infectious for less than 30 minutes) and remains infectious on hard surfaces like door nobs for up to 24 hours.  The infected human was shedding live virus, and would have been an obvious vector to take the virus to other farms.  They have done nothing but "recommend" that dairy workers and their contacts exposed to infected cattle not go to other farms, but they never started a program to identify all the infected herds so that the workers would know not to go to other farms.  They should have started testing and contact tracing immediately, but they did not, and have not started.  If they had started contact tracing they would already have a good idea of how all the herds got infected.  Only one county in Michigan got infected cattle from Texas, but now 9 counties have infected herds.  People are the obvious vector.  2 people have been confirmed to have been infected in Michigan, and there have likely been a lot more.  They were shedding live virus and could have infected their human contacts, and if they or their contacts went to other dairy farms they would have been shedding virus.  It would not need to survive on their skin or clothing.
Both the USDA and CDC have been screwing up by the numbers on this one.
Ron Okimoto

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge