Michigan’s health department announced Thursday a human case of bird flu in a dairy worker. It’s the third human case reported to date in the current U.S. avian flu outbreak among dairy cows.
Unlike the previous two cases which only involved eye infection, this patient has respiratory symptoms, according to a statement from Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive with the Michigan health department. The patient had direct exposure to an infected cow and wasn’t wearing any personal protective equipment.
“This tells us that direct exposure to infected livestock poses a risk to humans,” said Bagdasarian.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that its labs tested a sample from the Michigan patient and confirmed it was H5N1 bird flu. The patient had flu-like symptoms, including a cough and eye discomfort. The patient was treated with antivirals and is isolating at home. No other workers or household contacts of the patient have gotten sick so far.
The CDC said that risk to the general public remains low. Like the other two recent cases, this infection came from direct exposure to an infected animal. “There is no indication of person-to-person spread of A(H5N1) viruses at this time,” according to the CDC.
The CDC is monitoring data from influenza surveillance systems, and said “there has been no sign of unusual influenza activity in people.”
Nonetheless, scientists following the outbreak say this human case is troubling development.
“Our concerns about this outbreak are coming true,” says Dr. Rick Bright, a virologist and the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). “The longer the U.S. allows this outbreak to continue, without appropriate measures to stop it, without conducting testing in cows and people, more people will be at increased risk for exposure and infection.”
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I mean I’ve heard this before but didn’t Covid originate in China? We might’ve caused the spread by our lack of containment measures, but is there proof it originated in the US?
was also detected in Italy from December 2019 samples
I think it originated in Maryland at Ft Detrick, there were “pneumonia” outbreaks in the area during summer of 2019 and a “vape lung” scare as well in some areas
Wasn’t the “vape lung” just people using shitty home made carts with some vitamin oil or isopropyl in it?
Fort Detrick is really suspicious but while there’s a lot of smoke I can’t see a fire or a smoking gun
I still think that’s where covid came from
“This tells us that direct exposure to infected livestock poses a risk to humans,” said Bagdasarian.
NO SHIT?!
Lots of animal diseases aren’t transmissible to humans tbf
True but this is a novel strain of a disease that has crossed the species barrier in the past.
It’s perfectly fine, look I’ll even eat one!
The Devil’s beef steak
Buffalo wings must be extra dangerous.
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maybe this will somehow cancel out the upcoming nuclear war Biden is trying to start
Aww shit, here we go again
never stop masking gang
n95s for life
Damn.
Please develop no further.
People on hear who understand this better than me. How serious is this? Should i be preparing and how?
Covid fucked me up and I’m a little freaked out so I’d appreciate some educated advice
At least have some masks on hand. N95.
Find a new job if you work in meat processing.
Otherwise it’s still most likely to be nothing. Worry about it more if there’s human to human spread or the number of simultaneous cases gets above like 100. At that point, start slowly stocking up on non-perishable food, mostly to weather the shortages from people panicking if it takes off. You’ll have time to react and learn about it.
If H5N1 becomes highly contagious from human to human it will likely be devastating. It’s hard to gauge the exact risk except to say that animal agriculture creates constant conditions for contagious disease to go the other-animal-to-human route and what we’re seeing right now is exactly how that happens and eventually becomes human-to-human. Repeated other-animal-to-human infections creates more and more opportunities for viruses to adapt to humans.
Do the things you wish you had done in preparation for COVID. Basically how to live a hermit life but still get your needs met. Backup food, clean water, other consumables (toilet paper ) bidet!), a set of N95 masks to last you several months, social connections and entrainment and anything you might need for self care. Focus on having some savings. If you have the means, some inflation hedging isn’t a bad idea, like having some gold.
If you are particularly cool, get involved with mutual aid organizing because it’s a much more efficient and impactful way of doing this stuff on a community scale.
folks, no one has been seriously ill with this, it’s a storm in a teacupI wonder if this is going to stand out, along the lines of Katrina, as a clear moment in US history where the state very visibly just gives up without a token effort (outside of the more gradual trend of disintegration).
Who’s ready for another round of pandemic conspiracy nutters?
i’m ready for masks to be banned, doors to be welded open, and everyone to be marched into the office at gunpoint
I don’t know how doctors and scientists etc ever discover these things because when I ever go to the doctor no matter what it is they say go fuck myself. Sometimes they hit me and spit on me on my way out as well. Do we just sometimes get lucky and a hobby biologist gets sick and swabs themself or what.
Doctor told me I probably didn’t have covid and I shouldn’t worry about isolating or anything when I was sitting in his office with what turned out to definitely be covid
Get a load of money bags over here, he goes to the doctor
If he has respiratory symptoms then he can probably infect other people… Right?
Nah. Even if other people were inhaling an infected person’s cough, that doesn’t mean that the virus itself can replicate in another human. Yet. It still has to evolve that ability. But the more this sort of thing happens, the more likely that becomes.
