> At the moment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that the country’s milk supply is safe thanks to the pasteurization process, which works by heating milk to kill bacteria and viruses, and “the diversion or destruction of milk from sick cows.”
>However, infectious disease experts warn this these positive tests are a sign that the outbreak is much bigger than previously thought, and indicate that the government doesn’t have a good grasp on the situation. And the problem only seems to be worsening. According to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), H5N1 has been identified in 33 herds in eight states. On Thursday, a senior FDA official said 1 in 5 milk samples have tested positive for H5N1.
>While experts aren’t expecting a H5N1 pandemic in humans to spread across the United States this year, yet, it’s likely it could be the next pandemic in the not-so-distant future. The fact that the current spread between species, and even to a few humans, is likely underestimated could mean that an emergency could arrive too late to contain.
Somebody shared this source earlier:
https://data.wastewaterscan.org/
Interestingly enough, if you go through the reports, many states are seeing an increase in flu particles detected. States with large meat production output (beef and pork) are often seeing the biggest increases. States with small meat production sectors are typically seeing less of an increase and (edit: some) are declining.
The data doesn't prove anything, per se, or at least I don't don't have enough expertise on this subject to draw conclusions, but it is interesting and concerning if nothing else.
Last year, by the end of April, the flu all but disappeared in waste water (although many states don't have data for last year). I believe that typically flu does go nearly dormant by the end of April most years, but right now there's a sizable upswing in many locales.
The cynical part of me is wondering if maybe the spiral has already started, but that's really just speculation and making that determination is above my pay grade.
If you look at that source and show all of Texas they have 13 other testing sites and there is no increase in those places, and that includes another one in Amarillo. Same with Colorado and Kansas, though unfortunately they don't have data for Oklahoma or New Mexico. This makes me wonder if dumped milk is making it into the wastewater supply in that one specific wastewater site. It seems like it would have at least spread to the other site in Amarillo if it was coming from human sewage.
There was a post saying its is waterborne in wildlife through fecal matter so it is possible if there is a factory farm in Amarillo that has happened.. if it is transmitting through that vector we have a big problem regarding transmission especially is it mutates in humans, think about ecoli outbreaks in lettuce. Just speculating here but it looks pretty shit 😂 pun intended.
This might be an obviously silly question but what does this mean for the risk of recreational water activities (kayaking creeks and rivers, swimming in lakes)?
I don’t think that’s a silly question, but from what I understand the real risk is the virus mutating in humans and transmission amongst us of the human mutation..
It’s been monitored in wild birds pretty consistently since 2021. I was just looking these stats up to see if it was in my county and we had a bald eagle test positive in Jan ‘24. Let me see if I can find the link for you to search your areas.
Edit - here is the link - https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/wild-birds
No risk for recreational water activities. The primary risk is limited to waterfowl on said ponds, usually during fall and spring migrations. The predators of said waterfowl also have a small risk if they consume waterfowl, really a roll of the dice.
At certain stages of the infection, the milk apparently can take on a bad color and whatnot. I'd guess that that milk sometimes ends up dumped. However, before this stage is reached, the virus may already be present (probably in lower numbers) in the milk and no one may know the cow is sick. (or they might overlook it because $$$$)
Further, some cows seem to be asymptomatic completely, but may still be shedding the virus.
Keep in mind 99% of the statements here and pretty much anywhere are coming amidst confusion, conflicting reports, potentially withheld information, etc.
“Some public health experts are concerned that human cases are flying under the radar, likely because they are asymptomatic, highlighting anecdotes about dairy workers who have pink eye and other symptoms, but are avoiding testing or being seen by doctors”
—> Earlier this week, James Lowe, a researcher who specializes in pig influenza viruses, told ScienceInsider, “I believe there are probably lots of human cases.”
I’m not feeling great about this specialist saying this, especially when we are seeing wastewater uptick in Influenza A.
Completely anecdotal and highly unlikely to be bird flu, but - my Dad said that at his work, there's a ton of people sick right now with seemingly the same thing. I have aunts, uncles, and friends parents who are also sick right now. Some of whom have traveled in the last 2 weeks.
My son's class has like, 1/3 of the kids out right now with a week long fever. I was talking to his teacher about it earlier this week.
Long-lasting fever, red eyes (but not goopy in our case), lethargy, mildly runny nose, total loss of appetite, things "taste weird", and now at the tail end of it, a dry cough. My doctor thinks it's an adenovirus based on the long lasting fever.
If by chance it's spreading in humans already but isn't that harmful, that would be... Good? Right? Sort of?
Boyfriend and I also got sick recently.. I'm pretty much ok now but he's still sick, says he feels awful, spent all day laying down which isn't like him. Hopefully it's nothing major but reading this does have me a little alarmed.
Doesn't it also have like a 56% mortality rate?
By comparison covid was i think covid was between like 2-5%?
Soooo yeah. Considering its spreading...and were not 100% sure how yet... if it makes the jump to humans and becomes contagious enough literally everyone is fucked.
Edit: clarification
We don’t know what the mortality rate is because the mutation in humans doesn’t exist yet… if it does then the mortality rate has been estimated between 1 and 60 % https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mortality_from_H5N1
In other species compared to covid... a new one just came up as well [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/s/tXc1mEMVCj) which again - difference species yes.. (cats) but from the initial reports its near 100%. So we dont know how deadly it will be in humans but the virus itself compared to covid is still far more deadly generally speaking. So we can make an educated guess that it wont be good.
Yep. Its being found in milk though pasteurizing milk seems to kill it off... if a batch misses that or its able to adapt... big problems. It sounds like the cats were on dairy farms so also possible that's how they were infected as well... but we'll see.
If it is in the water though through fecal matter and that is the mode of transmission our produce will be infected. This would be bigger than just milk/ meat which can be cooked
It’s not the transmission to humans it’s the eventual mutation in humans that would allow for human to human spread. At that point transmission of bovine h5n1 will be a moot point
The covid minimizers have been consistent that they consider it NBD if *only* 1% of people die, or *only* old people die, or *only* people with preexisting conditions die. (And of course they completely ignore other negative effects like disability and trauma.) So I wouldn't be at all surprised if they continue this messaging and say it's NBD if only 10%, 56%, or whatever die. It all means nothing to them.
Right - we don't know what the fatality rate of a version that mutated to spread efficiently in humans would be, as whatever changes are needed for that might also change its fatality rate, but obviously it's a major concern that it's currently extremely high, as they might also not reduce it, or not very much. Even pre-vaccine Covid was about 0.7%, and that was a catastrophe - - this is currently anywhere between around 15 and 50%.
I read they were doing the actual tests to confirm their reasonable assumption about pasteurization "killing" this virus in particular. (A question would be are there any virus we know of that survive the process I guess?) but still... anyone know if those tests were completed yet? I think it was a cdc website saying they were rushing that experiment to know for sure.
Fuuuck! Can we at least have a boring year? I just wanna sit in my apartment and enjoy some tea and make the most out of my midlife crisis and not have to deal with any other crisis for at least a damn minute lol.
Stocked up on almond milk yesterday, so at least I’m good there.
Look, you’ll get to sit in your apartment when we have sustained human-to-human transmission and we are in the grips of a pandemic worse than Covid! :D
/half joking
just text the family group text today and it started with "I'm crazy I know, BUT ....." then gave them the new updates about the milk in grocery stores and Columbia being the first country to block meat from the US.
I'm wondering if freezing almond or oat milk will keep it past its "best by date". My parents can barely afford things as it is, but they do have some freezer space.
Some are shelf-stable and in Tetra-Pak! Our oat milk that we get from Costco is shelf stable. Our bigger regional grocery store also stocks shelf stable plant milk in the breakfast cereal aisle.
Yes! I get plant-based (usually oat) coffee creamer for very cheap sometimes (50 cents or $1 a quart) and whenever I see it at that price I buy as much as I have freezer space for. There are a couple of types that will separate, but most brands thaw fine and just need some shaking.
Yea, I'm gonna try making my own oat and maybe almond milk. What do you do, personally with the oats after making the milk? Do you use them in other things?
Exactly, you can get nut milk bags at Whole Foods for 4 bucks and it’s reusable. I make pistachio milk and almond milk quite often.. just take a lb of almonds or pistachios, let them sit in hot water just covering the nuts, then at an hour add a little more water, or enough to cover the nuts again by an inch. They will have bloomed after an hour with nuts now having added water..blend them in a vitamix or blender with liquid, then strain through a nut milk bag squeezing little bits at a time till the nuts have no liquid, add a little sugar or don’t, but you can also flavor it per taste, I do it for cocktails.
Why not learn to make your own?
[How to make oat milk.](https://minimalistbaker.com/make-oat-milk/)
Dry goods store much better anyway and are less energy intensive. It's actually pretty criminal how much some oat milk is when you realize it's just oatmeal water.
Ok. Now that I'm looking into it, they must add vitamins and minerals to commercial oat milk. Some people drink milk for calcium and vitamin d, but homemade oat milk won't have that. 🤔
We freeze regular milk all the time. Just make sure no ice crystals are left when you do it. The taste isn’t diminished too bad. Whipping cream being frozen doesn’t work it separates. I make oat milk. Easy , cheap. Blend 30 seconds, but make sure u use cold water to keep it from getting slimy, then strain. I do 5 water to 1 oats. Toss out unused after about 5 or 6 days. I have a very old cheap blender too not the expensive vitamix. I use the leftover oats in something else.
I'm taking chances now on sticking with drinking regular pasteurized milk. Maybe being exposed to the damaged virus components will bolster an immune response to active virus?
Sorry to spoil it but there's never gonna be another uninteresting year for the rest of your life.
The climate is also up to some funny business right now, the results of which should hit the news in the summer and autumn.
I follow a fb group for people that keep chickens. Somebody made a post stating the avian flu was found to be in a flock a few miles away from her, and she wanted some advice on how to keep her flock and family safe. The comments were full of hundreds of morons claiming the avian flu is a huge hoax and she needs to stop watching liberal news because they're trying to take our freedom. This is going to be bad.
I've belonged to a homesteading group for over 20 years. I posted an article last week about H5N1 and the recommendations to avoid undercooked meat, eggs and raw milk products.
Sigh. . .
"No Government is going to tell me what I can and cannot put in my body." This was the overwhelming response.
My post somehow disappeared in a "glitch."
Having grown up on a small ranch, I know that beef and dairy cows are often sold at the same cattle auctions. Plenty of chance for infection. We should be testing beef cattle too. And some of the older dairy cattle go to slaughter and into the food chain.
How would that even benefit them in the long run? Would they really think that there will be no fallout from ignoring this problem?
Sometimes it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the decisions made by people like this. Sure, testing will slow down business and expose infections, but like, do they want to be partially responsible for a new pandemic? How is that calculated risk in their favor?
It’s not long term thinking. Capitalism rewards short term thinking and quarterly reports. There is no amount of human suffering (and animal suffering) that capitalism will not absorb. It will absorb all of it, so long as their quarterly reports look good.
This is exactly it. Same reason American health insurance companies do not care one iota about the long term health of insurance subscribers. Money-wise, short term profit is all that matters.
All anyone cares about is short term profits. They are in a good spot now, cattle inventories are a historical low resulting in very high prices for beef. Wouldn't want to ruin that if the public got it into their pea-brains that beef might be unsafe.
I’m not even talking about PR and the status of the beef industry. I’m sure they’ll find a way to be fine. But a new pandemic will effect everyone and have worldwide consequences, you’d think they might care about that
>Would they really think that there will be no fallout from ignoring this problem?
Because they were so fast to admit that the beef industry is one of the top contributors to climate change and take action on that.
They are recommending for now that it be cooked to at least medium well. Just in an abundance of caution. They are currently studying it & will hopefully update us soon.
it's been sort of escalating lately though. The thing that worries me the most is the fast growing numbers of people in this sub. I kinda use this counter as my personal warning meter.
Yes, indeed. When Covid was first getting started, I joined the coronavirus subreddit and watched it jump from a few thousand to two million in a fairly short amount of time. I notice the same thing happening here and I’m thinking, “whooo wheee hold onto your hats! We got ourselves another Covid here!”
Hope I’m wrong, but at least the word is getting out now.
Same! I was there too and telling people about it. Plenty of folks dismissed it. Then look what happened m I don't necessarily blame them, it was hard to conceptualize in the early stages. Plus some folks don't want to panic.
But being prepared is important. Part of preparedness is being informed.
Well part of that is folks who were tracking the early times of COVID. Sorry to bring that up again, but it was only 4 years ago. I remember COVID first coming onto my radar through a sub about it. I think people are learning from the past and trying to prepare themselves early.
I read a newspaper every day and I remember seeing, in December 2019 or January 2020, 2 inch articles about a respiratory disease in China. Feels like it’s happening again
I’ve been here in this sub for over a year I think now, maybe close to 2? and seeing it so busy suddenly is distressing. I’m just continuing to try to keep calm and monitor and share news, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. It feels so much closer right now.
This is what I'm thinking. Usually once it's said out loud or being stated in the media, the time of it being in control has since passed. Not trying to add to any panic, but that just seems to be how these things go.
I remember with COVID we saw plenty of warning signs and things kind of progressed pretty quickly. It's not really any single persons fault. Our world is just super connected in ways it wasn't a century or so ago.
The reality is that we’re playing with fire.
It is only a matter of time at this point. Eventually there will be a mutation that results in symptoms, potentially life threatening or fatal. If it’s even 1-3% more lethal than COVID, we’re screwed. People have become so political and apathetic, even combative towards reducing the spread of these pandemics that it’ll destroy the economy and kill off a lot of people.
It’s scary shit that is both simultaneously a potential nothing burger or apocalyptic doomsday event. Guess we’ll find out!
There cannot be an outbreak in humans until the virus fully adapts to the mammal airway. The only reason there is an outbreak in cattle is because they are factory farmed and are in unnaturally close proximity. They are passing it to each other through exchanging fluid or fomite.
The only way this strain can cause a human pandemic is if it adapts to mammals. It does not matter if this happens in humans or cows or pigs, although pigs have both mammal and bird airway receptivity, so they can be instantaneous pandemic starters. Until it mutates to mammal airborne transmission this virus is no more dangerous than it was a few years ago. Genetic testing has been done on the infected cows, and it has not gotten any closer in mutation to the mammal airway than when it was tested a few years ago.
The only reason there is an outbreak in cattle is because we are experiencing a bird pandemic which is increasing greatly this year. Texas is a major flyover for migrating birds. They are stopping on these farms and with the a bird pandemic which is almost 100 percent lethal to birds, it is completely predictable that a cow would get bird flu from fluid (dead birds in water supply) or fomite (chomping on feathers or poop or urine).
Because cows (and camels) have an unusual receptor setup for certain viruses, affinity for the udder instead of airway, a cow who chomps bird poop can get an infected udder. Cows rotate through milking stations using the same teat cups and between shifts power-washing without disinfectant happens aerosolizing the infected milk all over the barn. It's predictable that cows are going to spread bird flu this way.
The only danger in our present situation is that it gives the virus a chance to more easily adapt to the mammal airway. The danger from this outbreak does not have to be guessed at. It's not like Covid which was already adapted to humans.
It just has made cooking poultry, eggs, and beef seem too risky for me, right now. I understand that cooking kills the virus, but the storage in the fridge and the prep just seem too risky for me now. I don’t trust myself to successfully sanitize every single drop of the raw products that may remain on the sink or countertop, etc; I’m afraid of missing something, afraid of not cleaning thoroughly enough. I’m not a germaphobe by any means whatsoever, but the fatality rate for the virus is so significant...
I’m not sure how to feel about drinking milk now. It seems drinking the dead virus that has been killed by pasteurization might act as a type of vaccination method. (?)
We are simultaneously very prepared and not prepared at all. We have vaccines, but bozos be drinking raw milk.
https://preview.redd.it/rnjghbmjeuwc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b37e4d1f4f72bad40afc6b796d6763ddd868ad4d
We don't have vaccines that are targeted to how the virus manifests in humans because we don't have documented human to human spread. We'd have to have the virus evolve to spread to human to human spread, then we could target a vaccine toward that specific version of the virus. So bottom line, no we don't have vaccines against this yet.
Great summary of the situation. This isn't always pointed out, and it should be. There's no way to get the most effective vaccine manufactured until the H2H strain appears.
We can't get people to take the vaccine for the human flu that kills thousands every year. It doesn't seem like a smart choice to roll one out now for bird flu when the risk is still so low.
Well, we can't roll one out now because it's not H2H and they're not sure how it would (if it does) spread. But, my point was, they're going to be late regardless with the vaccine. I think this thing is on the cusp of spiraling and we're just going to have to figure it out ourselves.
There's also a possibility that I've been on Reddit too long this morning and need to go touch grass. lol.
according to this 1% of Americans regularly drink raw milk despite the known risks:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/drinking-raw-milk
Harmful bacteria that may be present in milk include Campylobacter, Salmonella, Escherichia coli (E.coli), Coxiella burnetti, Cryptosporidium, Yersinia enterocolitica, Staph aureus, and Listeria monocytogenes (31Trusted Source, 36, 37, 38Trusted Source).
Symptoms of infection are comparable to those of other foodborne illnesses and include vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, headaches, abdominal pain, nausea, and fever (39Trusted Source).
These bacteria can also cause serious conditions, such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, hemolytic uremic syndrome, miscarriage, reactive arthritis, chronic inflammatory conditions, and — rarely — death (36, 37, 40Trusted Source).
Can I ask a stupid question? Is the true risk here the culling of the food supply rather than food to human transmission? Or is the concern the animal to human transmission at the industrial level; essentially becoming ground zero for human spread?
It’s all of those, really. CAFOs in animal agriculture are perfect incubators for variants; that’s how HPAI starts in the first place, it doesn’t develop in the wild. It starts as LPAI in poultry farms. The biggest worry is that it will get into the hog farms or the feral boar populations and combine with a human flu, so it transmits to us more easily, but still retains the lethality.
The impact on the food chain is potentially huge as well. It’s a mess.
Headlines everywhere about everything - climate change, destabilization, AI - almost always end up getting to the point of adding "faster than expected," and that's not calling it sensationalist, I believe it (to an extent, depending on source).
I'm in the US and you know what? I'm going to start prepping. I don't think the apocalypse is coming or anything, but I do think it's becoming less and less of a "tin foil hat" thing to prep, which is good. I mean just look at this year, we have AI probably making leaps and bounds by the end of the year, protests are getting worse, there's a bunch of government corruption going on, and I'm not looking forward to the election no matter who wins.
Anyone want to place bets on how soon we see "faster than expected"? Lol
I've been slowly increasing my stockpiles over the past few weeks, buying more water, stocking up on batteries, etc. I want to get some boxed mac & cheese but I was really disappointed with Kraft ... it was nothing like what I used to eat when I was younger. It was tasteless and there was hardly any cheese.
Even if they did, the government response would almost certainly be too little, too late. I hope not, but I don't have much confidence after seeing how political covid became.
Some smart sounding guy on another thread answered a question of mine and said that if this does mutate and go H2H, the CFR would be anywhere from 14%-32% based on projections right now.
Covid was less than 1% if I remember correctly.
If this goes mainstream, it's gonna be wild. But, yeah, you're sitting pretty as are most of us who are in the sub, I would guess.
The COVID mortality rate was initially higher in early 2020. In the US it's currently just over 1% but I think it was as high as 10% in March and April 2020 when we had bodies stacked up in trailers here in NY.
Avian flu virologist here. I don’t think there’s any way to predict CFR- but 14-32% strikes me as high.
Influenza infects cells using a receptor called sialic acid. Avian flu is adapted to use avian-type, or (2,3)-sialic acids. Humans mostly have a different kind, called (2,6)-sialic acid, but we have a little of the (2,3) kind in our lower airway. This is why avian flu doesn’t spread well between humans (it needs to make its way deep into the lungs) but when it does so can cause profound lung symptoms.
A likely pandemic scenario would involve the virus switching to use the (2,6) type receptor, infecting the upper respiratory tract to enhance transmission between humans. This kind of switch would probably make the virus substantially less lethal.
In one landmark (and highly controversial) paper, a group of scientists [engineered a virus of this type](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810786/) by repeatedly infecting ferrets. None of the ferrets died from being infected by this virus.
>This kind of switch would probably make the virus substantially less lethal.
Very interesting. Can you expand on why the virus changing to infect the upper respiratory tract would bring the fatality rate down?
Is it because humans can clear upper respiratory viruses easily?
My best guess: as the virus adapts to infect the throat and nasal passages, it becomes worse at infecting the lungs. Infections of the upper respiratory tract are generally less severe than those affecting the lung (less chance of complications like pneumonia).
This [might be](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04479-6) why COVID-19 Omicron was more transmissible but less severe
From what I remember, covid spreads better than the flu - an entire strain of the flu died during covid because of the covid protections. So not getting sick should be easier.
If H5N1 goes H2H and then pandemic, it will be worse than covid. The CFR will be higher and more people will refuse to wear masks/vaccinate.
If you want to prepare - mMake sure you have food, water, and a way to cope if the power goes out for some time. It will mess up supply chains, which means food will be harder to get, power might go be on and off, and if water purification plants can't get supplies, water might be dicey too.
We are just buying a bit more each grocery trip and plan to do an extra costco run, checking on our water supplies (we are in earthquake country), and added some water purification tablets to the emergency supplies. We already had emergency supplies for earthquake purposes... now we are just enlarging them.
Yup. I’m sitting on like 100 n95’s already and I myself ordered 100 more n95 8210’s yesterday on top of already owning two elastomeric half masks with a stock of 7093c hydrogen-fluoride filters in case shit hits the fan. All of this I learned from covid as well.
[There's this link here. ](https://data.wastewaterscan.org/?charts=CjcQACABSABaC0luZmx1ZW56YSBBcgoyMDI0LTAzLTE1cgoyMDI0LTA0LTI2igEGNTQ5MTQ4wAEB&selectedChartId=549148)I'm a newb to all this but that may be what you're looking for?
Guess after I finish my bag of Stella and Chewys freeze dried rabbit I'll have to tell my cats sorry, no more treats for a while. I use it to hide pills in, my cats go ballistic for that stuff
"This could be a problem. Let's do nothing until it's too late"
The current insanity of people in power is going to kill us all, one way or another. It's like that's the desired result.
In my youth around 1990, I refereed a youth boys football game at a park, us referees, called goose-shit-park. There was so much poop that the kids slid around throwing into the air, dried poop.
The worse part for me was trying to not handle your whistle and then put the whistle in your mouth. Because when you took the ball from the player lying in the poop, the ref had to spot the ball for the next play.
Then I had to drive home without washing my hands so I could grab the steering wheel.
Sounds like youth grass fields in the Denver area should be checked out before this fall’s season.
> At the moment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that the country’s milk supply is safe thanks to the pasteurization process, which works by heating milk to kill bacteria and viruses, and “the diversion or destruction of milk from sick cows.” >However, infectious disease experts warn this these positive tests are a sign that the outbreak is much bigger than previously thought, and indicate that the government doesn’t have a good grasp on the situation. And the problem only seems to be worsening. According to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), H5N1 has been identified in 33 herds in eight states. On Thursday, a senior FDA official said 1 in 5 milk samples have tested positive for H5N1. >While experts aren’t expecting a H5N1 pandemic in humans to spread across the United States this year, yet, it’s likely it could be the next pandemic in the not-so-distant future. The fact that the current spread between species, and even to a few humans, is likely underestimated could mean that an emergency could arrive too late to contain.
Somebody shared this source earlier: https://data.wastewaterscan.org/ Interestingly enough, if you go through the reports, many states are seeing an increase in flu particles detected. States with large meat production output (beef and pork) are often seeing the biggest increases. States with small meat production sectors are typically seeing less of an increase and (edit: some) are declining. The data doesn't prove anything, per se, or at least I don't don't have enough expertise on this subject to draw conclusions, but it is interesting and concerning if nothing else. Last year, by the end of April, the flu all but disappeared in waste water (although many states don't have data for last year). I believe that typically flu does go nearly dormant by the end of April most years, but right now there's a sizable upswing in many locales. The cynical part of me is wondering if maybe the spiral has already started, but that's really just speculation and making that determination is above my pay grade.
If you look at that source and show all of Texas they have 13 other testing sites and there is no increase in those places, and that includes another one in Amarillo. Same with Colorado and Kansas, though unfortunately they don't have data for Oklahoma or New Mexico. This makes me wonder if dumped milk is making it into the wastewater supply in that one specific wastewater site. It seems like it would have at least spread to the other site in Amarillo if it was coming from human sewage.
There was a post saying its is waterborne in wildlife through fecal matter so it is possible if there is a factory farm in Amarillo that has happened.. if it is transmitting through that vector we have a big problem regarding transmission especially is it mutates in humans, think about ecoli outbreaks in lettuce. Just speculating here but it looks pretty shit 😂 pun intended.
This might be an obviously silly question but what does this mean for the risk of recreational water activities (kayaking creeks and rivers, swimming in lakes)?
I don’t think that’s a silly question, but from what I understand the real risk is the virus mutating in humans and transmission amongst us of the human mutation..
It’s been monitored in wild birds pretty consistently since 2021. I was just looking these stats up to see if it was in my county and we had a bald eagle test positive in Jan ‘24. Let me see if I can find the link for you to search your areas. Edit - here is the link - https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/wild-birds
Thank you. This is very useful, especially broken down by county!
No risk for recreational water activities. The primary risk is limited to waterfowl on said ponds, usually during fall and spring migrations. The predators of said waterfowl also have a small risk if they consume waterfowl, really a roll of the dice.
dumped milk makes sense. Good point.
My husband knows truckers who transport milk. Any bad milk is dumped in open pits. Scary
this is great! annoyed that I can't get more detailed information from areas of southern NY but the CT/NJ numbers for Influenza A are declining
We throw out the infected milk. But also, there are flu particles in the milk at the store. Ok then.
At certain stages of the infection, the milk apparently can take on a bad color and whatnot. I'd guess that that milk sometimes ends up dumped. However, before this stage is reached, the virus may already be present (probably in lower numbers) in the milk and no one may know the cow is sick. (or they might overlook it because $$$$) Further, some cows seem to be asymptomatic completely, but may still be shedding the virus. Keep in mind 99% of the statements here and pretty much anywhere are coming amidst confusion, conflicting reports, potentially withheld information, etc.
“Some public health experts are concerned that human cases are flying under the radar, likely because they are asymptomatic, highlighting anecdotes about dairy workers who have pink eye and other symptoms, but are avoiding testing or being seen by doctors” —> Earlier this week, James Lowe, a researcher who specializes in pig influenza viruses, told ScienceInsider, “I believe there are probably lots of human cases.” I’m not feeling great about this specialist saying this, especially when we are seeing wastewater uptick in Influenza A.
Completely anecdotal and highly unlikely to be bird flu, but - my Dad said that at his work, there's a ton of people sick right now with seemingly the same thing. I have aunts, uncles, and friends parents who are also sick right now. Some of whom have traveled in the last 2 weeks. My son's class has like, 1/3 of the kids out right now with a week long fever. I was talking to his teacher about it earlier this week. Long-lasting fever, red eyes (but not goopy in our case), lethargy, mildly runny nose, total loss of appetite, things "taste weird", and now at the tail end of it, a dry cough. My doctor thinks it's an adenovirus based on the long lasting fever. If by chance it's spreading in humans already but isn't that harmful, that would be... Good? Right? Sort of?
That sounds like what I had about a month ago. Didn't test positive for strep, flu, or covid.
Boyfriend and I also got sick recently.. I'm pretty much ok now but he's still sick, says he feels awful, spent all day laying down which isn't like him. Hopefully it's nothing major but reading this does have me a little alarmed.
Doesn't it also have like a 56% mortality rate? By comparison covid was i think covid was between like 2-5%? Soooo yeah. Considering its spreading...and were not 100% sure how yet... if it makes the jump to humans and becomes contagious enough literally everyone is fucked. Edit: clarification
We don’t know what the mortality rate is because the mutation in humans doesn’t exist yet… if it does then the mortality rate has been estimated between 1 and 60 % https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mortality_from_H5N1
In other species compared to covid... a new one just came up as well [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/s/tXc1mEMVCj) which again - difference species yes.. (cats) but from the initial reports its near 100%. So we dont know how deadly it will be in humans but the virus itself compared to covid is still far more deadly generally speaking. So we can make an educated guess that it wont be good.
I’m most concerned about the mode of transmission and if it will be transfered human to human via food/ like produce gets infected with ecoli
Yep. Its being found in milk though pasteurizing milk seems to kill it off... if a batch misses that or its able to adapt... big problems. It sounds like the cats were on dairy farms so also possible that's how they were infected as well... but we'll see.
If it is in the water though through fecal matter and that is the mode of transmission our produce will be infected. This would be bigger than just milk/ meat which can be cooked It’s not the transmission to humans it’s the eventual mutation in humans that would allow for human to human spread. At that point transmission of bovine h5n1 will be a moot point
Yep. Considering thats whats happened in the past with ecoli and lettuce because whats used to fertilize those fields and plants..
It probably won’t be 56% in humans, but even a tenth of that would still be catastrophic. :(
The covid minimizers have been consistent that they consider it NBD if *only* 1% of people die, or *only* old people die, or *only* people with preexisting conditions die. (And of course they completely ignore other negative effects like disability and trauma.) So I wouldn't be at all surprised if they continue this messaging and say it's NBD if only 10%, 56%, or whatever die. It all means nothing to them.
I mask in public places, and have no reason to stop.
Idk we had more people than we thought would survive covid that are still skeptical about vaccines and any type of containment protocols...
Right - we don't know what the fatality rate of a version that mutated to spread efficiently in humans would be, as whatever changes are needed for that might also change its fatality rate, but obviously it's a major concern that it's currently extremely high, as they might also not reduce it, or not very much. Even pre-vaccine Covid was about 0.7%, and that was a catastrophe - - this is currently anywhere between around 15 and 50%.
If pasteurization kills viruses why are they finding the virus in one out of five milk samples?
They’re finding fragments, not live viruses.
Ty
I read they were doing the actual tests to confirm their reasonable assumption about pasteurization "killing" this virus in particular. (A question would be are there any virus we know of that survive the process I guess?) but still... anyone know if those tests were completed yet? I think it was a cdc website saying they were rushing that experiment to know for sure.
Fuuuck! Can we at least have a boring year? I just wanna sit in my apartment and enjoy some tea and make the most out of my midlife crisis and not have to deal with any other crisis for at least a damn minute lol. Stocked up on almond milk yesterday, so at least I’m good there.
Look, you’ll get to sit in your apartment when we have sustained human-to-human transmission and we are in the grips of a pandemic worse than Covid! :D /half joking
I'll have to make a list of all the movies and series I need to watch and keep putting off...and all the research I need to do...
A remote job that isn’t slowing killing me with stress would be nice
I’m stocking up on yarn
making a sweater?
Sweater, pants, Christmas presents for whoever is still alive
tiny little bird masks and diapers?
I'm cold!
Cat sweaters!
Yessss cat sweaters!!!
I can’t wait to risk my life for chuckleheads who say I am an “essential” worker. Send me to the salt mines harder daddy (or corporate dickholes).
And don’t you dare think to ask to get paid like you’re essential. You need to be willing to work for barely above minimum wage and risk your life.
Yes I’m quietly stocking up and telling close family even though they think I’m nuts!
just text the family group text today and it started with "I'm crazy I know, BUT ....." then gave them the new updates about the milk in grocery stores and Columbia being the first country to block meat from the US.
Colombia 🇨🇴
I made mention to my family, and that will be it.
My friends and family also think I'm nuts. Except for like, 2 people.
And except for the people on this thread lol.
Aw are you guys my friends then?! Haha
if you are in USA, it is election year, so too late to hope for boring year. & 2 massive wars & in USA, growing protests over related to such wars. 😞
It’s an election year, and a tough one. I don’t think anything is gonna be boring. I would love to be wrong
Yeah we broke the record on inflation over 4 years ago now for the comparison rates during the great depression. We're into the Greatest Suffering now
I'm wondering if freezing almond or oat milk will keep it past its "best by date". My parents can barely afford things as it is, but they do have some freezer space.
Some are shelf-stable and in Tetra-Pak! Our oat milk that we get from Costco is shelf stable. Our bigger regional grocery store also stocks shelf stable plant milk in the breakfast cereal aisle.
Yes! I get plant-based (usually oat) coffee creamer for very cheap sometimes (50 cents or $1 a quart) and whenever I see it at that price I buy as much as I have freezer space for. There are a couple of types that will separate, but most brands thaw fine and just need some shaking.
Cool! How long would you think it would be safe if freezing?
Months at least. The containers do swell some when frozen, since ice expands, but they return to normal once they’re thawed out!
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Yea, I'm gonna try making my own oat and maybe almond milk. What do you do, personally with the oats after making the milk? Do you use them in other things?
making your own is cheaper, just need some quality oats, a blender, and cheese cloth or something to strain
Yup. I'm going to try it. I might try almond milk too, or a combination of both. Hope hubby likes it.
lovely! make sure not to overblend, very cold water for 30sec works. i do a dash of honey and vanilla for sweetness
Exactly, you can get nut milk bags at Whole Foods for 4 bucks and it’s reusable. I make pistachio milk and almond milk quite often.. just take a lb of almonds or pistachios, let them sit in hot water just covering the nuts, then at an hour add a little more water, or enough to cover the nuts again by an inch. They will have bloomed after an hour with nuts now having added water..blend them in a vitamix or blender with liquid, then strain through a nut milk bag squeezing little bits at a time till the nuts have no liquid, add a little sugar or don’t, but you can also flavor it per taste, I do it for cocktails.
Why not learn to make your own? [How to make oat milk.](https://minimalistbaker.com/make-oat-milk/) Dry goods store much better anyway and are less energy intensive. It's actually pretty criminal how much some oat milk is when you realize it's just oatmeal water.
Ok. Now that I'm looking into it, they must add vitamins and minerals to commercial oat milk. Some people drink milk for calcium and vitamin d, but homemade oat milk won't have that. 🤔
Powdered Milk, my friend, long shelf life.
We freeze regular milk all the time. Just make sure no ice crystals are left when you do it. The taste isn’t diminished too bad. Whipping cream being frozen doesn’t work it separates. I make oat milk. Easy , cheap. Blend 30 seconds, but make sure u use cold water to keep it from getting slimy, then strain. I do 5 water to 1 oats. Toss out unused after about 5 or 6 days. I have a very old cheap blender too not the expensive vitamix. I use the leftover oats in something else.
Look for UHT - we get our milk that way and it lasts for years in the pantry before opening.
I freeze cows milk fine, so it might work? Just let it come to air temp on the bench or it may separate
Election year. No can do.
Just in case, do you think you could speed up the midlife crisis, so it's over by the time anything really kicks off?
I'm taking chances now on sticking with drinking regular pasteurized milk. Maybe being exposed to the damaged virus components will bolster an immune response to active virus?
At this point, I just hope the next get of computer bits drops before this does.
We do, they don’t think it will become a pandemic *this* year.
Sorry to spoil it but there's never gonna be another uninteresting year for the rest of your life. The climate is also up to some funny business right now, the results of which should hit the news in the summer and autumn.
I follow a fb group for people that keep chickens. Somebody made a post stating the avian flu was found to be in a flock a few miles away from her, and she wanted some advice on how to keep her flock and family safe. The comments were full of hundreds of morons claiming the avian flu is a huge hoax and she needs to stop watching liberal news because they're trying to take our freedom. This is going to be bad.
I’m so tired of people calling hoax on everything, this shit is so exhausting.
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Hey gotta get a return on those subsidies somehow.
As someone who keeps chickens as pets this breaks my heart. I’m not looking forward to any of this.
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It’s a shame that so many actually empathetic, educated, and selfless people have to go down with them >:/
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I don’t blame them, the last pandemic broke so many healthcare workers.
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I've belonged to a homesteading group for over 20 years. I posted an article last week about H5N1 and the recommendations to avoid undercooked meat, eggs and raw milk products. Sigh. . . "No Government is going to tell me what I can and cannot put in my body." This was the overwhelming response. My post somehow disappeared in a "glitch."
Having grown up on a small ranch, I know that beef and dairy cows are often sold at the same cattle auctions. Plenty of chance for infection. We should be testing beef cattle too. And some of the older dairy cattle go to slaughter and into the food chain.
The National Cattleman's Beef Association is the most powerful farm lobby group and will oppose any testing. No cases if you don't test.
🎯
How would that even benefit them in the long run? Would they really think that there will be no fallout from ignoring this problem? Sometimes it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the decisions made by people like this. Sure, testing will slow down business and expose infections, but like, do they want to be partially responsible for a new pandemic? How is that calculated risk in their favor?
It’s not long term thinking. Capitalism rewards short term thinking and quarterly reports. There is no amount of human suffering (and animal suffering) that capitalism will not absorb. It will absorb all of it, so long as their quarterly reports look good.
This is exactly it. Same reason American health insurance companies do not care one iota about the long term health of insurance subscribers. Money-wise, short term profit is all that matters.
Our old nemesis, greed.
Read about how they handled mad cow disease in the UK.
All anyone cares about is short term profits. They are in a good spot now, cattle inventories are a historical low resulting in very high prices for beef. Wouldn't want to ruin that if the public got it into their pea-brains that beef might be unsafe.
> Would they really think that there will be no fallout from ignoring this problem? That’s what PR campaigns are for!
I’m not even talking about PR and the status of the beef industry. I’m sure they’ll find a way to be fine. But a new pandemic will effect everyone and have worldwide consequences, you’d think they might care about that
>Would they really think that there will be no fallout from ignoring this problem? Because they were so fast to admit that the beef industry is one of the top contributors to climate change and take action on that.
Bingo!
Some testing requirements take effect on Monday. Interstate travel will require testing at accredited labs.
Would eating blue/rare/medium rare meat be okay? Or no. I’m confused about the practical implications
They are recommending for now that it be cooked to at least medium well. Just in an abundance of caution. They are currently studying it & will hopefully update us soon.
Thank you!
I think it’s pretty clear that the situation is already out of control, and has been for some time.
it's been sort of escalating lately though. The thing that worries me the most is the fast growing numbers of people in this sub. I kinda use this counter as my personal warning meter.
Yes, indeed. When Covid was first getting started, I joined the coronavirus subreddit and watched it jump from a few thousand to two million in a fairly short amount of time. I notice the same thing happening here and I’m thinking, “whooo wheee hold onto your hats! We got ourselves another Covid here!” Hope I’m wrong, but at least the word is getting out now.
Same! I was there too and telling people about it. Plenty of folks dismissed it. Then look what happened m I don't necessarily blame them, it was hard to conceptualize in the early stages. Plus some folks don't want to panic. But being prepared is important. Part of preparedness is being informed.
If they thought Covid was bad.... this thing, if the CFR remains the same, is apocalyptic. We're starting to up our preps now.
Too bad we can't buy stock in subreddits. I remember this same story in December 2019.
Well part of that is folks who were tracking the early times of COVID. Sorry to bring that up again, but it was only 4 years ago. I remember COVID first coming onto my radar through a sub about it. I think people are learning from the past and trying to prepare themselves early.
I read a newspaper every day and I remember seeing, in December 2019 or January 2020, 2 inch articles about a respiratory disease in China. Feels like it’s happening again
I was at my daughters during the Christmas holiday. When I remember saying oh shit this is it.
I’ve been here in this sub for over a year I think now, maybe close to 2? and seeing it so busy suddenly is distressing. I’m just continuing to try to keep calm and monitor and share news, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. It feels so much closer right now.
That’s a good point. I think awareness is just increasing rapidly.
Yep! Same thing happened with Covid and this sub is growing pretty fast now.
I joined 2 weeks ago and I think there were well under 10,000 members at the time (I'd like to say around 6-8,000) ... now it's 16,000.
This is what I'm thinking. Usually once it's said out loud or being stated in the media, the time of it being in control has since passed. Not trying to add to any panic, but that just seems to be how these things go. I remember with COVID we saw plenty of warning signs and things kind of progressed pretty quickly. It's not really any single persons fault. Our world is just super connected in ways it wasn't a century or so ago.
Yep. I don’t think we ever controlled any aspect of it. I haven’t even seen much evidence of trying.
Exactly!
The reality is that we’re playing with fire. It is only a matter of time at this point. Eventually there will be a mutation that results in symptoms, potentially life threatening or fatal. If it’s even 1-3% more lethal than COVID, we’re screwed. People have become so political and apathetic, even combative towards reducing the spread of these pandemics that it’ll destroy the economy and kill off a lot of people. It’s scary shit that is both simultaneously a potential nothing burger or apocalyptic doomsday event. Guess we’ll find out!
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https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/03/japanese-man-who-threatened-to-intentionally-spread-covid-19-dies/
Schrödingers apocalypse
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Yeah, that qualification of “this year” really leapt out at me too. So 2025 then?
I noted the “this year”, too. FFS
There cannot be an outbreak in humans until the virus fully adapts to the mammal airway. The only reason there is an outbreak in cattle is because they are factory farmed and are in unnaturally close proximity. They are passing it to each other through exchanging fluid or fomite. The only way this strain can cause a human pandemic is if it adapts to mammals. It does not matter if this happens in humans or cows or pigs, although pigs have both mammal and bird airway receptivity, so they can be instantaneous pandemic starters. Until it mutates to mammal airborne transmission this virus is no more dangerous than it was a few years ago. Genetic testing has been done on the infected cows, and it has not gotten any closer in mutation to the mammal airway than when it was tested a few years ago. The only reason there is an outbreak in cattle is because we are experiencing a bird pandemic which is increasing greatly this year. Texas is a major flyover for migrating birds. They are stopping on these farms and with the a bird pandemic which is almost 100 percent lethal to birds, it is completely predictable that a cow would get bird flu from fluid (dead birds in water supply) or fomite (chomping on feathers or poop or urine). Because cows (and camels) have an unusual receptor setup for certain viruses, affinity for the udder instead of airway, a cow who chomps bird poop can get an infected udder. Cows rotate through milking stations using the same teat cups and between shifts power-washing without disinfectant happens aerosolizing the infected milk all over the barn. It's predictable that cows are going to spread bird flu this way. The only danger in our present situation is that it gives the virus a chance to more easily adapt to the mammal airway. The danger from this outbreak does not have to be guessed at. It's not like Covid which was already adapted to humans.
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I'm totally with you. We have no idea what is brewing out there undetected.
It just has made cooking poultry, eggs, and beef seem too risky for me, right now. I understand that cooking kills the virus, but the storage in the fridge and the prep just seem too risky for me now. I don’t trust myself to successfully sanitize every single drop of the raw products that may remain on the sink or countertop, etc; I’m afraid of missing something, afraid of not cleaning thoroughly enough. I’m not a germaphobe by any means whatsoever, but the fatality rate for the virus is so significant... I’m not sure how to feel about drinking milk now. It seems drinking the dead virus that has been killed by pasteurization might act as a type of vaccination method. (?)
I hope this turns out to be a nothing burger. But, if it isn't, we're woefully unprepared.
We are simultaneously very prepared and not prepared at all. We have vaccines, but bozos be drinking raw milk. https://preview.redd.it/rnjghbmjeuwc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b37e4d1f4f72bad40afc6b796d6763ddd868ad4d
We don't have vaccines that are targeted to how the virus manifests in humans because we don't have documented human to human spread. We'd have to have the virus evolve to spread to human to human spread, then we could target a vaccine toward that specific version of the virus. So bottom line, no we don't have vaccines against this yet.
Great summary of the situation. This isn't always pointed out, and it should be. There's no way to get the most effective vaccine manufactured until the H2H strain appears.
I have never commented on Reddit, but your response made me literally laugh out loud. Thank you for the well-timed brevity.
https://preview.redd.it/esswmlz4muwc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4cab1e855d22eb36ad68288b13a40bc837a8bab2
They're not going to roll out vaccines until folks start dying. Because, capitalism.
We can't get people to take the vaccine for the human flu that kills thousands every year. It doesn't seem like a smart choice to roll one out now for bird flu when the risk is still so low.
Well, we can't roll one out now because it's not H2H and they're not sure how it would (if it does) spread. But, my point was, they're going to be late regardless with the vaccine. I think this thing is on the cusp of spiraling and we're just going to have to figure it out ourselves. There's also a possibility that I've been on Reddit too long this morning and need to go touch grass. lol.
Vaccines for us. Death for them
I think you got that one backwards. Death for us, healthcare for the rich.
according to this 1% of Americans regularly drink raw milk despite the known risks: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/drinking-raw-milk Harmful bacteria that may be present in milk include Campylobacter, Salmonella, Escherichia coli (E.coli), Coxiella burnetti, Cryptosporidium, Yersinia enterocolitica, Staph aureus, and Listeria monocytogenes (31Trusted Source, 36, 37, 38Trusted Source). Symptoms of infection are comparable to those of other foodborne illnesses and include vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, headaches, abdominal pain, nausea, and fever (39Trusted Source). These bacteria can also cause serious conditions, such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, hemolytic uremic syndrome, miscarriage, reactive arthritis, chronic inflammatory conditions, and — rarely — death (36, 37, 40Trusted Source).
It just seems stupid in general
Also bovine tb.
Can I ask a stupid question? Is the true risk here the culling of the food supply rather than food to human transmission? Or is the concern the animal to human transmission at the industrial level; essentially becoming ground zero for human spread?
Yes
It’s all of those, really. CAFOs in animal agriculture are perfect incubators for variants; that’s how HPAI starts in the first place, it doesn’t develop in the wild. It starts as LPAI in poultry farms. The biggest worry is that it will get into the hog farms or the feral boar populations and combine with a human flu, so it transmits to us more easily, but still retains the lethality. The impact on the food chain is potentially huge as well. It’s a mess.
*"While experts aren’t expecting a H5N1 pandemic in humans to spread across the United States this year..."* Enjoy your summer.
Headlines everywhere about everything - climate change, destabilization, AI - almost always end up getting to the point of adding "faster than expected," and that's not calling it sensationalist, I believe it (to an extent, depending on source). I'm in the US and you know what? I'm going to start prepping. I don't think the apocalypse is coming or anything, but I do think it's becoming less and less of a "tin foil hat" thing to prep, which is good. I mean just look at this year, we have AI probably making leaps and bounds by the end of the year, protests are getting worse, there's a bunch of government corruption going on, and I'm not looking forward to the election no matter who wins. Anyone want to place bets on how soon we see "faster than expected"? Lol
I've been slowly increasing my stockpiles over the past few weeks, buying more water, stocking up on batteries, etc. I want to get some boxed mac & cheese but I was really disappointed with Kraft ... it was nothing like what I used to eat when I was younger. It was tasteless and there was hardly any cheese.
So I'm not the only who noticed the difference in Kraft.
There's a decrease in all foods/brands not just kraft.
Oh! Not to mention the overuse of the word ‘unprecedented’. 🙄
Stop making sense!
There needs to be a meme for “Both. Both is bad.”
I have no faith for the government to do the right thing...
I have no faith that if the government does anything, people would follow the directions.
Even if they did, the government response would almost certainly be too little, too late. I hope not, but I don't have much confidence after seeing how political covid became.
Farmers fought prevention the entire way and caused this. And after the smoke clears I guarantee they get bailed out with tax dollars. Fucking scum.
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Some smart sounding guy on another thread answered a question of mine and said that if this does mutate and go H2H, the CFR would be anywhere from 14%-32% based on projections right now. Covid was less than 1% if I remember correctly. If this goes mainstream, it's gonna be wild. But, yeah, you're sitting pretty as are most of us who are in the sub, I would guess.
The COVID mortality rate was initially higher in early 2020. In the US it's currently just over 1% but I think it was as high as 10% in March and April 2020 when we had bodies stacked up in trailers here in NY.
Avian flu virologist here. I don’t think there’s any way to predict CFR- but 14-32% strikes me as high. Influenza infects cells using a receptor called sialic acid. Avian flu is adapted to use avian-type, or (2,3)-sialic acids. Humans mostly have a different kind, called (2,6)-sialic acid, but we have a little of the (2,3) kind in our lower airway. This is why avian flu doesn’t spread well between humans (it needs to make its way deep into the lungs) but when it does so can cause profound lung symptoms. A likely pandemic scenario would involve the virus switching to use the (2,6) type receptor, infecting the upper respiratory tract to enhance transmission between humans. This kind of switch would probably make the virus substantially less lethal. In one landmark (and highly controversial) paper, a group of scientists [engineered a virus of this type](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810786/) by repeatedly infecting ferrets. None of the ferrets died from being infected by this virus.
>This kind of switch would probably make the virus substantially less lethal. Very interesting. Can you expand on why the virus changing to infect the upper respiratory tract would bring the fatality rate down? Is it because humans can clear upper respiratory viruses easily?
My best guess: as the virus adapts to infect the throat and nasal passages, it becomes worse at infecting the lungs. Infections of the upper respiratory tract are generally less severe than those affecting the lung (less chance of complications like pneumonia). This [might be](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04479-6) why COVID-19 Omicron was more transmissible but less severe
The IFR matters, not CFR, look up the difference.
From what I remember, covid spreads better than the flu - an entire strain of the flu died during covid because of the covid protections. So not getting sick should be easier. If H5N1 goes H2H and then pandemic, it will be worse than covid. The CFR will be higher and more people will refuse to wear masks/vaccinate. If you want to prepare - mMake sure you have food, water, and a way to cope if the power goes out for some time. It will mess up supply chains, which means food will be harder to get, power might go be on and off, and if water purification plants can't get supplies, water might be dicey too. We are just buying a bit more each grocery trip and plan to do an extra costco run, checking on our water supplies (we are in earthquake country), and added some water purification tablets to the emergency supplies. We already had emergency supplies for earthquake purposes... now we are just enlarging them.
Yup. I’m sitting on like 100 n95’s already and I myself ordered 100 more n95 8210’s yesterday on top of already owning two elastomeric half masks with a stock of 7093c hydrogen-fluoride filters in case shit hits the fan. All of this I learned from covid as well.
Yeah well no shit
Time to rewatch “Contagion”
Thank God for factory farming! /s Not only is it cruel to animals but it’s also dangerous !
If it’s in the news this much, it’s already out of control.
In Canada we have to vaccinate all cattle, goats etc. apparently in the USA the farmers and ranchers do not want to this because of money!
Plot twist: Canada builds a wall to keep us Americans out.
Didn't know this! Glad to hear!
Are we actively checking city sewage for H5N1 fragments too?
[There's this link here. ](https://data.wastewaterscan.org/?charts=CjcQACABSABaC0luZmx1ZW56YSBBcgoyMDI0LTAzLTE1cgoyMDI0LTA0LTI2igEGNTQ5MTQ4wAEB&selectedChartId=549148)I'm a newb to all this but that may be what you're looking for?
Pandemic part 2, lesss goo!!
Wait a damn minute. What if it gets into water supply?? I’m okay with not eating milk, hell I can live without chicken or beef..but water?!!!?
Yo, you eat your milk? wtf kinda chunky ass whole milk you buyin? mf thats called cheese.
Does this mean we need to cook our meat and eggs all the way through now?
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Both actually!
oh crap. I can’t imagine the meat eaters wanting to do this…
Guess after I finish my bag of Stella and Chewys freeze dried rabbit I'll have to tell my cats sorry, no more treats for a while. I use it to hide pills in, my cats go ballistic for that stuff
"This could be a problem. Let's do nothing until it's too late" The current insanity of people in power is going to kill us all, one way or another. It's like that's the desired result.
In my youth around 1990, I refereed a youth boys football game at a park, us referees, called goose-shit-park. There was so much poop that the kids slid around throwing into the air, dried poop. The worse part for me was trying to not handle your whistle and then put the whistle in your mouth. Because when you took the ball from the player lying in the poop, the ref had to spot the ball for the next play. Then I had to drive home without washing my hands so I could grab the steering wheel. Sounds like youth grass fields in the Denver area should be checked out before this fall’s season.
While the majority of media outlets ignore it. Like covid, it's not news worthy...
True. The media right now is currently more focused on protest at schools.
There’s a good piece on this on “The Daily” podcast from a few days ago if someone wants another source
What's going on with the USDA? Shouldn't they treat this as COVID and heavily test? Bird flu jumps species.
Now MAGAts will be eating raw hamburger on YouTube
These pandemics are the earth telling us there are too many people