HHS directs 306 million to avian flu

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/hhs-directs-306-million-avian-flu-response-virus-strikes-more-us-flocks
A bunch of commercial poultry flocks have gone down in Dec. and Poultry workers likely have the highest infection rate when they have to deal with disposing millions of birds.  The HHS is putting money into the rapid response that the CDC claims that they can implement if the dairy virus ever adapts to humans.  From their current response rates, the CDC would have failed miserably.  The HHS is preparing all the states for the next pandemic, so they don't have much faith in the CDC's ability to implement their response fast enough to contain the next pandemic.
What they need to worry about is the genotype D1.1 that has adapted to infecting humans in the first two cases where it has infected humans. The two mutations needed to make the virus human transmissible occurred in both cases so far detected, so they are likely mutations that get selected for during D1.1 infections of humans, and patient zero could be the next person infected that doesn't get isolated until they have infected others.
The CDC is not tracking the D1.1 infections separately from the dairy B3.13 infections, and they have stopped giving out the information as to which genotype is infecting the poultry, cats, and humans.
Most of the poultry infections have been due to the dairy virus transmitted to the poultry by dairy workers.  The USDA is now admitting that dairy workers are taking the virus to the poultry farms, but they claim that it is on their skin and clothing.  That is highly unlikely because the virus is known to only be infectious off skin and clothing for less than 30 minutes.  It survives longest on smooth hard surfaces (up to 24 hours), and 7 to 10% of dairy workers in Michigan and Colorado that were tested were found to have been infected.  Infected workers shed live virus for as long as they are infected.  The research strain was cultured from samples collected from the first dairy worker infected, so they have known from the beginning that the dairy workers were shedding live virus.
California never did their study to test dairy worker close contacts to see if they had been infected.  It is tragically lame that California has only tested 130 dairy workers out of the over 5,000 on infected dairies, when they know that the infection rate is so high that they likely should have detected over 500 infected dairy workers by now, and should have been testing their close contacts, and making sure that the infected did not go to poultry farms, nor other dairies.  My guess is that California now has the most commercial poultry farms infected by the dairy virus.
Ron Okimoto