Re: California dairy workers infected by H5N1

On 10/8/2024 8:38 PM, RonO wrote:

On 10/8/2024 2:34 PM, RonO wrote:

On 10/6/2024 12:28 PM, RonO wrote:

On 10/4/2024 11:39 AM, RonO wrote:

On 10/4/2024 10:41 AM, RonO wrote:

On 10/4/2024 8:25 AM, RonO wrote:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-dairy-workers- infected- bird-flu-latest-human-114482799
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Two California dairy workers have been confirmed to have been infected by the H5N1 dairy virus.  Both were dairy workers.  It was expected because California has had the highest herd detection rate because they have been tracking dairy worker contacts from infected herds, and have been identifying infected herds before the dairy farmers had detected symptoms.  It has been likely that dairy workers were spreading the virus to poultry farms since the beginnings in Texas. The virus only is infectious off clothing or skin for less than 30 minutes, and they knew that poultry farms and states like Kansas did not get infected cattle. Infected dairy workers have likely been spreading the virus from the beginning.
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California was not testing the dairy workers, they were only tracking their contacts.  These two had the eye infection symptoms, and were tested.
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The CDC is still claiming the danger of human to human infection is low, but the more herds infected the more humans will be infected, and the greater the chance that the virus will mutate into something much worse.   They are claiming that this isn't evidence for person to person transmission, but that isn't the major issue with infected herds.  It is the virus evolving to better infect humans that is the issue that they should be trying to control, and the CDC refuses to do anything about that.
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California is trying to detect all the infected herds as quickly as possible, and they are using possible human transmission to other farms to do it, and it is obviously working.  Over 50 herds have been detected nearly all in the last couple weeks.
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Ron Okimoto
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The Asian strain of H5N1 killed dozens of big cats at two zoos in Vietnam.  47 tigers, 3 lions and 1 panther died.  The dairy H5N1 is a recombinant virus and half of it's genome is from a North American strain of Avian influenza, but it still is lethal to cats.  In the US the cats have been dying of brain infections.
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https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/dozens-zoo-tigers-die- after- contracting-bird-flu-114490246
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Ron Okimoto
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https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/s1003-birdflu-case- california.html
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The CDC is still claiming that human infections are rare, but that likely was never the case.  The CDC still has tested less than 250 people when thousands have been in contact with infected cattle or close contacts of dairy workers.  My take is that the spread from herd to herd and poultry farms can be explained by an infection rate of around than 5% among dairy workers, but the Colorado poultry workers (6 of them) were infected at the same farm dealing with the dairy virus infecting a layer flock.  These poultry workers were wearing protective gear, but it wasn't enough.  The dairy virus seems to infect the patients eyes, so you pretty much need to wear a gas mask like face protector to keep from getting infected.
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As stupid as it may be the CDC is still advising people to wear protective equipment when dealing with infected animals, but they refuse to identify all the infected herds so that the people will know when they should wear the protective gear.
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The CDC is really supporting their failing program, and refuse to admit that they have been wrong for months.  They never started contact tracing, and testing dairy workers.  They never attempted to identify all the infected herds even though their advice to dairy workers about wearing protective gear depended on identifying infected herds. California has demonstrated that contact tracing works in detecting infected herds even if the dairy workers are not tested. They have known that more states had infected herds, but refused to start testing in those states.  It has been obvious since May that Florida had infected herds.  Positive dairy products were produced in Florida (FDA testing) even though Florida is several states away from Carolina and Texas (states known to have infected herds) and the CDC's own waste water data indicated that some Florida counties had exceptionally high levels of influenza in their waste water.  No one went to those counties to test the dairies, nor track back the milk source of the positive dairy plant that produced the positive dairy products.  Dairy workers have been exposed to the virus in Florida, at least, since May and they are not testing, nor are they requiring protective gear to protect the dairy workers from being infected. Florida is just one of the states that has not admitted to having infected herds at this time.
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Ron Okimoto
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https://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-72m-vaccine-manufacturers-advance- bird- flu-shot/story?id=114502971
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The US is putting 72 million into getting pharm companies started in producing a flu vaccine that includes H5.  The latest Missouri case indicates that this is wasted money.  That patient had an H5 gene with 2 amino acid substitutions in it that supposedly reduces neutralizing ability of H5 antigens 10 to 100 fold.  The CDC is currently allowing the virus to spread among dairy cattle and dairy workers, and the virus is obviously mutating.  What we will need is a vaccine that works against the version of the virus that eventually adapts to better infect humans.
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They should have been identifying all the infected herds and trying to limit the spread of the virus from the beginning.  California indicates that contact tracing dairy workers even without testing them can identify infected herds, but the CDC never started contact tracing, nor a testing program for dairy workers.  Infected dairy workers have likely been the primary vector for spreading the dairy virus to other herds and poultry farms.  As the virus spread it mutates, so any attempt to make a vaccine at this time will likely fall short of making an effective vaccine against what will eventually become the next pandemic virus.
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Really, only two herds in Michigan got infected cattle from Texas, and it was likely spread to multiple counties and dozens of herds by dairy workers.  The Michigan survey of dairy workers told them that it was common for dairy workers to work at more than one dairy farm, and some of them worked at poultry farms.  Michigan lost several very large flocks of layers to the dairy virus, and dairy workers likely infected the first flock while the other flocks shared poultry workers.
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Ron Okimoto
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Second attempt to send:
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https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/08/health/bird-flu-california-dairy-farms/ index.html
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A third dairy worker in California is believed to have been infected by the dairy virus.  The CDC is obfuscating the issue instead of deal with the fact that dairy worker infections have likely always been more common than they have detected because they never bothered to test the workers like they have been doing in California.
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A Brown University pandemic specialist is claiming that dairy worker infections are more of a problem than the CDC is claiming, and that more should be done to prevent dairy worker infections, but the CDC never started contact tracing and worker and contact testing.  There was never an attempt to identify all the infected herds and try to limit dairy worker exposure.
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California is also reporting that the H5N1 dairy influenza seems to have become more virulent.  Initially herds were reporting 10% of the herd infected at anyone time and less than 2% mortality, but in California they have 50% of the herd infected and 10 to 15% of the cows are dying.
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This should be enough to get the USDA out of their denial stupidity and get them to start to identify all the infected herds so that they can be isolated to limit the spread of the virus.  They need to keep dairy workers on infected farms from spreading the virus to other farms.  In order to do this they have to identify the infected herds or start to restrict all dairy worker and their close contacts movements.
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Ron Okimoto
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 https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/mammals.html
 The herd count in California pretty much exploded and is now over 80 herds and they have identified the most affected herds of any state so far (likely because the other states are not really looking for infected herds).  The USDA is now listing 282 herds affected.
 The USDA claims to be releasing sequencing results, but they have not improved their annotation of the accessions, so you can't tell when or where they were collected.  Researchers have been complaining from the release of the first sequences about the lack of information that makes the sequences pretty useless for assessing how the virus is spreading and evolving.
 The USDA still refuses to start identifying all the infected herds, and wants to keep relying on self reporting when that is obviously not working.
 California is considering to start to look for infected herds in counties that have not reported symptoms.  They have done pretty well just tracing dairy worker contacts with other herds, but they think that the problem is likely spread across the state.  All the affected herds that they have recently detected (over 70 in the last couple weeks) obviously, also have worker contact issues with more dairies.
 Ron Okimoto

The USDA seems to have 103 California dairy herds given special IDs (CA103 is listed) as positive for the virus as of Oct 8.  California reported more that likely have to be verified since then.  California is claiming that the 5 Dairy workers infected, all at different farms, indicates that infection of dairy workers is a real issue considering how many herds that have been infected, and that it is obviously  very important to get the dairy workers to use protective equipment when working with the cattle.  The CDC is still only recommending use of protective equipment when working with infected animals, but they never started testing herds to determine which ones were infected.  California wants all dairy workers to start using protective gear, but have not made it a requirement at this time.  They have been identifying herds by tracing contacts of dairy workers and bulk milk testing of those herds. This is something that the CDC and USDA should have been doing from the beginning, since it is obviously working in identifying a lot of infected herds.
California was supposed to have fewer dairy workers that worked at multiple dairies compared to other states because most of the California dairies are very large and have full time staff.  This likely means that other states with infected herds have severely under reported infected herds in their states.
Poultry farms in California have started to go down with the dairy virus, likely (my take is that dairy workers have been a major transmission vector from the beginning) due to dairy worker transmission.  Some dairy workers also work on poultry farms.
Ron Okimoto