WHO confirms first fatal human case of bird flu A(H5N2)
reuters.com
reuters.com
I don't see a quote from the WHO that says this person died of bird flu, just that this person who was already very very ill was tested after they died and it was found they had bird flu.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2...
They do call it "a confirmed fatal case of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N2) virus" though the report focuses more on it being the first confirmed human case at all than the fact that the person died.
Quite. Apparently all his family have tested negative, but one wonders if the virus is circulating around the hospital and he's just the first case to be tested. Reminiscent of early covid, when that Chinese doctor noticed an uptick of viral pneumonia in his ward. As well as the exhortations to remain calm and that the risk is low.
Screw remaining calm. We need to overreact, if anything, as long as there's a hope of containment. Lock the ward down, trace contacts, ring-vaccinate the community, cull the livestock, set up wastewater surveillance. I can't do this again.
I mean, I wouldn't call that inconsistent with symptoms of acute influenza...
What about the millions of workers who cook burgers and handle large amounts of raw meat on a daily basis, then rub their eyes or noses? These are probably thousands of daily opportunities for the virus to jump species and attack human lung cells.
Compared to the chances of infection followed by human-to-human mutation in a small rural community where someone is exposed to sick birds and becomes a dead-end case, we are entering territory where the odds of that deadly mutation are orders of magnitude higher, and compounding daily.
I said a month ago that June 15th will be day zero for this to enter public consciousness with a sustained human chain of transmission and high mortality. I'm still standing by that date give or take a week.
We can start by talking about the fact that there seems to be no specific guidance from the CDC or USDA that suggests cooking steaks to 160F is necessary to kill bird flu, or that generally suggests this practice of cooking steaks to well-done.
In fact, a report on a very recent USDA FSIS study states the following about some intentionally-inoculated ground beef patties: "There was no virus present in the burgers cooked to 145 (medium) or 160 (well done) degrees, which is FSIS’ recommended cooking temperature. Even cooking burgers to 120 (rare) degrees, which is well below the recommended temperature, substantially inactivated the virus."
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/a...
> What about the millions of workers who cook burgers and handle large amounts of raw meat on a daily basis, then rub their eyes or noses? These are probably thousands of daily opportunities for the virus to jump species and attack human lung cells.
I'm just gonna leave this here: https://www.osha.gov/meatpacking/hazards-solutions
>> When the virus-laden beef patties were cooked to 120°F degrees (rare), however, the tests found evidence of the virus, but at much reduced levels [0]
Sorry, to your point about handling... if this is prevalent in fat and muscle tissue of otherwise healthy cattle then it is totally unlike pathogens introduced during slaughter, packing, grinding or food prep handling. Do you understand what I mean? Prior to this, other than prion diseases, pathogens inside muscle tissue basically did not exist in the modern beef meat supply. The only pathogens were introduced onto the outer surface during slaughter or handling. Cut away the outside and don't put it through a grinder and you can eat any piece of beef from a US supermarket raw. Up until now. Now we're talking about the interior volume of everything being loaded with a live virus.
That drastically increases risk in handling and consumption.
[0] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/usda-exp...
None of those words support the initial claim that the CDC has issued guidance to cook steaks to 160F, which is a claim that at this point I can only believe to be a fabrication that was made in bad faith.
I do not wish to spend any time at all determining which of your other claims may also be fabricated.
it was not the CDC but the USDA [0]:
> Bird flu virus particles were found in beef tissue taken from one dairy cow sent to be slaughtered for meat, and meat from the animal did not enter the food supply, USDA said last month.
> The agency has reported that no viral particles were found in samples of ground beef collected at retail stores, and that no bird flu virus was found after cooking ground beef to medium to well done, after it was injected with a virus surrogate as part of an experiment.
day by day, imo, this virus is inching closer to humans. recently house mice were found to be infected [1]. it's becoming a bit reminiscent of late 2019.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cows-infected-with-bird-flu...
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
0: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cows-infected-with-bird-flu...
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/a...
I'm not sure why the Telegraph got all bent out of shape over a few mice in New Mexico. If you scroll down and look at the table provided in the link above you will see that 17 domestic cats in 8 different states have tested positive, 17 cases in raccoons in various states, Over 90 cases in red foxes, around 40 cases in skunks, and 6 cases reported in possums, and many others.
So it spreads to any carnivorous or omnivorous mammal that feeds on birds, birds' eggs or scavenges their carrion. As well as a some that are probably getting it transmitted by some secondary means, such as contact with feces, eating another infected mammal or rodent, drinking cow's milk, etc. It does not appear that it is spreading from species member to species member, except maybe for the red fox?
A lot of this data is from 2022 and 2023. Not sure if they are no longer detecting it, or no longer testing a given species. You can read at the top of the page that there is no systematic testing of wild mammals, and that they are getting this ad hoc from "reporting agencies".
I thought this link might also be useful: https://www.who.int/news/item/12-07-2023-ongoing-avian-influ...
I have to say: This attitude that "I'll worry when the system starts crashing" is very un-hacker-like. Aside from dismissing minority hypotheses until disaster strikes, it lacks the ethos of seeing prevention as a valuable investment. In other words, if this were an interview, I would never hire someone who said "I'll worry about it when shit hits the fan".
Interesting! Can you share some reads on that?
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/3/23-1098_article
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922066/
Influenza A mutation rates: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/110197v1
My models are damn simple, though. It doesn't matter if you need 6 or 12 mutations. (Or it only really changes the kickoff by a few weeks at most). It doesn't matter if those incubate in 1 million or 6 million human/pigs/cattle. The times begin to converge in a very short range. What we do know is that it took about six months to develop a dozen mutations to go from birds to dairy cattle, and it took 4 months to detect that, in March. Any way you model it we have between 2 weeks and 2 months. Before humans start coughing it at each other and dying like masses of sea lions already did.
Even if I had the ability to do so, what good would it do me? What good would it do anyone? There’s literally no way I would be able to impact its mutation rate.
I’m going to keep writing software and raising my family.