Re: California dairy influenza infects 170 herds?

On 10/28/2024 8:25 PM, RonO wrote:

On 10/28/2024 10:20 AM, RonO wrote:

On 10/28/2024 9:47 AM, RonO wrote:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-28/bird-flu-cases-in- dairy-cows-roil-farmers-in-california
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This Bloomberg article cites a dramatic increase in the number of dairy herds infected in California, but the normal internet sources do not back up this number at this time.  The claim of 170 infected herds is much higher than the USDA claim last Friday of 137.
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The Bloomberg article notes that this is 40% of all infected herds confirmed in the US at this time, but they do not note that this is because no other state began contact tracing in order to identify the infected herds.  It is likely that the majority of infected herds in all the other states were never identified because no one wanted to determine that they were infected.  Contact tracing was never implimented anywhere else, and that is still the case.  The increased efforts to assist contact tracing to identify infected herds undertaken by the USDA applies only to California at this time.
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The California contact tracing is likely responsible for the identification of two more herds in Idaho last week.  These herds were likely not identified by the current means that Idaho is employing because they are relying on self reporting, hadn't self reported an infected herd for over a month, and California had tracked contact back to Idaho.
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Ron Okimoto

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The mortality is associated with dehydration that they are treating with electrolytes.  This indicates that it is the gut infection symptoms that seem to be the most deleterious to the cattle.  Previous research found SA α2,3-gal influenza receptors expressed in the lung, mammary gland and cerebrum of cattle, but they did not look at the gut.  Early on the gut was known to be infected because one of the most debilitating symptoms in dairy cattle was when the gut shut down and nutrient absorption was impaired.  The feces would get loose and watery.  Apparently the California dairy cows are losing too much water.  Diarrhea was one of the symptoms of the Missouri patient.
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Ron Okimoto
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https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/h5n1-avian-flu- isolate-dairy-worker-transmissible-lethal-animals
 I found an article claiming that the USDA had confirmed 41 more cases in California since the last update on the 24th making the total 178.
 More poultry flocks are going down with the dairy virus in California and also in Oregon.  Washington and Oregon have not reported infected dairy herds, but in all other cases the poultry have been infected by proximity and likely shared workers from infected dairies.  They need to start looking for infected herds in Washington and Oregon if they want to try to stop the spread to humans on the West coast.
 This article also has the disconcerting news of a human isolate.  It was a Texas isolate from virus cultured from the eye swab of the patient. It reportedly had the mutation associated with mammal infections, and was found to be lethal to other mammals and readily transmissible between animals.  The study was published in Nature.  It is evidence that the dairy virus is, and was from the beginning (the Texas patient was the first known human infected) a potential pandemic virus that should not have been allowed to propagate for as long as it has.
 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08254-7
 I saw a quote in another news article from a California dairy industry consultant that he thought that they would find 500 infected dairies in California by the end of November.  This was after the USDA stepped in to assist the contact tracing program with additional personnel. There are only 1,300 dairies in California.  The article also included the claim that the milk supply in California was being affected with 10 to 15% mortality among affected, and reduced milk production of the survivors.  Some dairies with over 50% infected cows have their milk production severely affected, and it will take some time to bring the cows back into production and replace the mortality.  These dairies are huge.  The dairy with two infected workers had over 5,000 cows and another, with dairy workers in common, had over 7,000.  There are over 1.7 million dairy cows in California.  The worst of it is that the virus has been constantly infecting and mutating in all the other states that have been infected.  There has been no attempt to identify all the infected herds, stop the spread to other dairy farms, and make sure that the workers are protected from infection.  Currently workers are not being protected at all the dairies that have not yet been identified as being infected.  California indicates that the number of unreported infected herds is substantial.
 Ron Okimoto
 

178 confirmed California herds as of the 10/25/2024 update at the USDA site.  The Special IDs indicate that over 200 submissions for verification.  CA208 (confirmed 10/24/2024) was among the samples confirmed indicating over 200 samples are in the batch currently being confirmed.  California is only submitting positive samples for verification.  Additional samples collected with the USDA assistance that just started last Thursday have likely not been submitted at this time.  That dairy consultant that estimated 500 positive herds by the end of November likely knew how many more herds had already been found to be positive and were waiting for confirmation.
So many herds are infected or are going to be infected that my guess is that California will start requiring all dairy workers to start using protective gear even at dairies not yet identified as being infected. Such a move could decrease the infection of humans, but could also decrease the spread due to infected dairy workers working on more than one dairy farm.  Protective gear should not be taken between farms.  The virus survives on hard surfaces for at least 24 hours, but only survives on skin and clothing for less than 30 minutes.  The first Texas patient was shedding live virus from his eyes.  The CDC and USDA has known this from the beginning, but never implemented contact tracing and testing like California has.
Ron Okimoto