RonO
2025-02-06 00:09:15 UTC
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PermalinkI just got back from my visit to California.
This article indicates that the H5N1 genotype D1.1 (the virus that
killed the Louisiana patient) has infected dairy cattle. For some
stupid reason the article does not mention the increased risk that that
this virus poses compared to the Genotype B3.13 that has only had mild
symptoms when infecting humans.
For another stupid reeason the USDA is not going to alter their
eradication plans when everyone should want to identify all the herds
infected with D1.1 as soon as possible. This means that they should not
risk missing early infections by testing bulk milk tank samples (they
missed the raw milk dairy twice before finding it infected). They
likely have to implement testing dairy cattle, and may have to do
initial detection by measuring body temp changes. They do not want
dairy workers infected by this virus.
They also do not want dairy workers working on more than one dairy farm
when D1.1 is present among the dairy herds.
Everyone is still in denial that dairy workers have been the major
factor in the spread of the dairy virus from farm to farm and to poultry
farms.
Someone else is claiming that the virus (B3.13) is here to stay if they
don't improve their eradication strategy. The virus will likely start
infecting previously infected herds in states like Texas, Michigan and
Kansas that were infected early on. The virus has changed a lot and
will likely start evading existing antibodies. California and Colorado
(the only states that tested more than volunteer farms) indicate that
all the other states likely had all their herds infected, but just did
not test them. California has detected almost 800 infected herds with
less than a 1,000 total herds in the state, and Colorado tested all
their herds (there were only 100 in the state) and found over 60%
infected before they were able to contain the virus to infected herds.
This just means that the virus (like Covid) has had plenty of chances to
mutate and will likely be able to start reinfecting dairy herds.
They need to detect the herds as early as possible and stop dairy
workers from working on more than one farm. For some reason California
never restricted the dairy workers and it resulted in the virus running
through the state. It was a stupid thing to do because they identified
most of the infected farms by contact tracing dairy workers. Dairy
workers have rights, but once a farm is found to be positive those
workers should not be allowed to work at other farms. This is more of
an issue with D1.1. The spread of this virus has to be minimized.
Ron Okimoto