Bird Flu

[azgreg]

 

[AlpineSummer]

On 2/5/2025 at 3:36 PM, azgreg said:

 

Link to Helen Branswell's article in STAT, but register-walled.  Link to USDA report up front.

https://x.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1887237416970559541?s=46&t=UoI8YN4izCZ9WWyT63rcbg

From STAT News article, the most ominous quote: "Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, called the finding “a huge development.” For starters, he said, there is reason to think the wild-bird version of the virus might have an easier time acquiring the mutations needed to adapt to spread in people than the version that has been spreading in cows."

[halfmanhalfbronco]

It will be time to really panic if it jumps to pigs.  

Seems that zoonotic shift is a matter of if, not when.  If it infects pigs, it will infect humans in short order.

 

[AlpineSummer]

Reassortment has been observed now in the U.S. (2 flu viruses in same host) at a duck farm. H5N9 and H5N1.  
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/tests-identify-h5n9-avian-flu-california-duck-farm

"...its crucial to keep H5N1 out of pigs, given that they are susceptible to human and other flu viruses, including reassortants."

Not even close to panic time, but definitely watch close time.  Lots going on including livestock vaccine development. 

[azgreg]

On 2/5/2025 at 4:06 PM, halfmanhalfbronco said:

It will be time to really panic if it jumps to pigs.  

Seems that zoonotic shift is a matter of if, not when.  If it infects pigs, it will infect humans in short order.

 

Mother Nature is trying to kill us and she's getting better everyday.

[halfmanhalfbronco]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:41 PM, AlpineSummer said:

Reassortment has been observed now in the U.S. (2 flu viruses in same host) at a duck farm. H5N9 and H5N1.  
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/tests-identify-h5n9-avian-flu-california-duck-farm

"...its crucial to keep H5N1 out of pigs, given that they are susceptible to human and other flu viruses, including reassortants."

Not even close to panic time, but definitely watch close time.  Lots going on including livestock vaccine development. 

Big Ag influence kind of infuriating.  The federal government should have mandated herd culling early on when it was only in a handful of states and a dozen or so herds.  

 

[renoskier]

On 2/5/2025 at 4:43 PM, azgreg said:

Mother Nature is trying to kill us and she's getting better everyday.

reminds me of this great Randy Newman theme song...

"you better pay attention or this world we love so much...might just kill you!"

[halfmanhalfbronco]

For all the (rightfully deserved) shit China has received for failure to monitor their wet markets and the abhorrently unsafe lab conditions resulting in the avoidable death of tens of millions, if Bird flu slips to the human population and human to human transmission with an RO high enough to not die out with a quick quarantine, because we failed to manage our herds by deferring to farmers, heads should fucking roll

[AlpineSummer]

While this thread is in the Politics subforum, I’m going to try to avoid (politics) as much as possible.  As noted/inferred in the X post in the 2nd post of thread, we haven’t discovered more new strains (in dairy herds) due to lack of testing and (probably) because bird-bovine transmission isn’t very efficient.  Can’t do much about the latter, but more testing would obviously be valuable.

[AlpineSummer]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:56 PM, renoskier said:

reminds me of this great Randy Newman theme song...

 

lol.  We just finished a bit of a Monk binge watch.  Great show.

[renoskier]

On 2/5/2025 at 4:58 PM, AlpineSummer said:

lol.  We just finished a bit of a Monk binge watch.  Great show.

my son and I had been enjoying it on Netflix but alas... it's gone 

[halfmanhalfbronco]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:57 PM, AlpineSummer said:

While this thread is in the Politics subforum, I’m going to try to avoid (politics) as much as possible.  As noted/inferred in the X post in the 2nd post of thread, we haven’t discovered more new strains (in dairy herds) due to lack of testing and (probably) because bird-bovine transmission isn’t very efficient.  Can’t do much about the latter, but more testing would obviously be valuable.

Didn't the DoA roll out nationwide milk testing?  Better late then never.

[halfmanhalfbronco]

Good, sad, frustrating read.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-america-lost-control-of-the-bird-flu-and-raised-the-risk-of-another-pandemic

[halfmanhalfbronco]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:57 PM, AlpineSummer said:

While this thread is in the Politics subforum, I’m going to try to avoid (politics) as much as possible.  As noted/inferred in the X post in the 2nd post of thread, we haven’t discovered more new strains (in dairy herds) due to lack of testing and (probably) because bird-bovine transmission isn’t very efficient.  Can’t do much about the latter, but more testing would obviously be valuable.

 

It's spreading between cows, not repeatedly going bird-bovine

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08054-z

 

"The virus has sustained mammal-to-mammal transmission in multiple settings, including European fur farms10,11, South American marine mammals12,13,14,15 and US dairy cattle16,17,18,19,"

[The Barber]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:01 PM, renoskier said:

my son and I had been enjoying it on Netflix but alas... it's gone 

Monk is available on Amazon Prime if you have that.

[The Barber]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:07 PM, halfmanhalfbronco said:

 

It's spreading between cows, not repeatedly going bird-bovine

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08054-z

 

Hopefully this isn't another situation of scientists in a lab, screwing around with viruses.

[halfmanhalfbronco]

On 2/5/2025 at 6:11 PM, The Barber said:

 

Hopefully this isn't another situation of scientists in a lab, screwing around with viruses.

It's not.  It is frustrating though as many of the failures we saw with our (and the world's) COVID response are showing up so soon.

[renoskier]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:10 PM, The Barber said:

Monk is available on Amazon Prime if you have that.

thanks...when it left Netflix, I looked and thought it had moved to Peacock or something I don't have

[halfmanhalfbronco]

I wonder if the federal government would have had such an irresponsible response and allowed bird flu to spread unchecked across our herds and farms if it was not an election year?  Morale was already low with unpopular wars funded by the US, inflation, and a presidents severe cognitive decline being hidden from the people.  The specter of a possible pandemic far deadlier than COVID is a real bummer.

[AlpineSummer]

On 2/5/2025 at 6:07 PM, halfmanhalfbronco said:

 

It's spreading between cows, not repeatedly going bird-bovine

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08054-z

 

"The virus has sustained mammal-to-mammal transmission in multiple settings, including European fur farms10,11, South American marine mammals12,13,14,15 and US dairy cattle16,17,18,19,"

Yes. Although as noted in link, wild bird spillover in dairy herds occurred (manifest). I think we have only identified two different variants, but there may well be more.  

“The panzootic 2.3.4.4b H5N1 viruses that are circulating in wild birds are genetically different from previous strains owing to ‘genomic reassortment’, an evolutionary process that occurs in viruses with segmented genomes. When two or more viruses co-infect a single host, they can swap entire segments of their genomes during genome replication to create novel hybrids (31).”

What I’ve heard, and the footnote seems to indicate, is this type of “reassortment” was key to some very bad flu pandemics going back 6-7 decades.  Another cause to watch and test more.