Best to use thick quilts that block light. Moving blankets are perfect.
For whatever reason almost all animals will freeze when they are entrapped but not in pain and blankets rarely will injure.
I have done this one rabbits, lizards, mice, and birds.
If it didn’t display any symptoms or die, immunization would be held off. Apparently this depends on the animal you were exposed to and rabies incidence rates in the vector in the geographic area.
In my case, the animal died 2 days later and caused quite a headache.
Their logic was that only symptomatic animals can spread rabies, and once symptomatic they tend to die within a week and display obvious symptoms even earlier.
I guess the risk of delaying 5 days is extremely low, or perhaps nonexistent. At least with immediately recognized contact?
Second, if a squirrel (or raccoon) does have rabies it will show symptoms within 10 days and die not too long after. The guy had the squirrel for seven years and had the raccoon for much longer than 10 days.
[1] https://nypost.com/2024/12/01/us-news/rabies-expert-says-nys...
tThat sounds like a relatively rapid way of testing if someone has rabies to me. have em bite a squirrel and in 7 days, you know if you need the shots!
Mandela Effect. NO ONE HAS ANY GOOD EXPLANATION FOR THE CORNUCOPIA NOT BEING ON THE FRUIT OF THE LOOM LOGO! I'm from that reality, but the one where Nelson lived.
Vaccines are for pre exposure. Google suggests the total cost of this service is between $1,500 and $3,000.
Medical treatment is for post exposure. Google also suggests the total cost of this service is around $15,000 as it typically includes an ER visit.
> What if the test isn’t 100% accurate?
They take the animal and dissect their brain so that it is as accurate as it possibly can be.
> We give rabies shots to dogs and cats constantly, why do humans have to jump through hoops to get it?
Different legal standards for the quality of product and different market sizes. Your dog and cat is taking a bigger risk with the product than we expect you to. Your vaccine is inactivated virus and offers stronger protection. The animal vaccine can be a modified living virus or a recombinant vaccine and offers weaker protection. Your dog and cat is probably legally required to have one and you are not.
> I got it about 10 years ago
It's not a permanent vaccine, is it?
Also most people's deductable isn't 15k
Also its basically impossible to Google medical prices in America because actual negotiated prices are normally a fraction of the cash price.
It's a lifesaving treatment. People usually don't bother themselves with frugality in either price or expertise at this point; although, I'm glad you can have this high confidence in your General Practitioner and his schedule.
> Also most people's deductable isn't 15k
The question is "why don't we just vaccinate people?" So while you're saying is true you're actually validating my point. The cost difference is not noticeable to most people and the cost of just the pre exposure vaccine is pretty high to begin with.
> its basically impossible to Google medical prices in America
No, it's entirely possible, because customers discuss these things openly and you can find those discussions. You can't establish an exact price that has any predictive power but you can establish a common range. It's not as if this is some mystery that only the Gnostics can tame.
As a non-us person, I can't understand how medical bill works in the state.
Surely this is some marked up price for insurance?
In Hong Kong, this is HK$215 ( ~US$30) per shot. You can get everything you need under US$200
Maybe. But they’ll absolutely try to get you to pay the full price. They might also demand payment up front. In either case you might be able to pay less if you negotiate, but maybe not.
If you’re insured you’ll pay between $0 and the full price of the discounted insurance rate (which this may already be close to—it depends where the numbers come from) depending on the insurance plan you have and how exactly it’s already been used. If you’ve already spent a lot of money “out-of-pocket” this year, you may have hit a limit that triggers 100% from insurance until the year’s up, usually a calendar year (try not to split a pregnancy over two calendar years…)
Then there’s whether the hospital’s in-network for your insurance, and maybe separately whether the doctors are and whether any testing facilities used are—that is, whether the insurance will pay for service from these providers (which may sure look to you like just one provider-entity, but might not be) at all. Sometimes almost nothing is in-network once you’re more than a couple hundred miles from home (and plenty within that radius might not be either), depends on the plan.
[edit] oh and if you ask anyone involved what you are going to have to pay, they’ll treat you like a moron. If you persist, they’ll send you on a wild goose chase of paperwork and billing codes and talking to more people who act like you’re a moron for thinking that was a reasonable question. You probably won’t ever figure it out, just have to wait for the bill. And then the inexplicable second bill. Then three more bills scattered over the rest of the year, two for entities you can’t identify without some phone calls, usually without even specifying on the bill WTF they’re asking you to pay for.
But someone somewhere must be making a killing. Probably the middlemen
You'll generally need either a referral or a travel clinic consultation to get one (unless you work in a job where it's deemed essential to get the rabies pre-exposure course). In more reasonable states, you can do something like the Costco Travel Vaccine consultation service (which runs ~$40) and, if you indicate you are traveling to remote areas in certain countries, get a recommendation for the rabies vaccine course.
In some cases, insurance will cover the rabies pre-exposure course. But that is generally rare.
So, in general, best case if you just want to voluntarily receive the vaccine in the US? Around $800 if you live in a state that is reasonable and use an inexpensive travel consultation service (like Costco's offering). And, if you want the full three dose series? That will generally set you back around $1200 minimum.
So, for a lot of people in the US, the cost will be under the $1500-3000 range that was noted. However, it's still expensive, even in the best case in the US!
> It's not a permanent vaccine, is it?
From Wikipedia [0]:
> Following administration of a booster dose, one study found 97% of immunocompetent individuals demonstrated protective levels of neutralizing antibodies after ten years
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies_vaccine#Additional_dose...
That is correct for most vaccines. However, it's different for rabies. The vaccine is also effective post exposure (as long as it is given soon enough). Human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) is also part of the post exposure treatment, but the vaccine is critical here too.
Also of note: if one has received a course of rabies vaccinations as part of a pre-exposure treatment (high risk jobs, certain types of travel, etc), then the post exposure treatment consists of only a few extra doses of the vaccine (and not HRIG).
I travel to relatively remote places, and hike in those places, so I decided to pay for a course of the rabies vaccine a few years ago (the three dose course). If I do ever end up with a feral dog bite, for example, that makes treatment much easier - the vaccine is much more available globally than HRIG, and the timeframe is more relaxed if you've had the pre-exposure jabs. Granted, that immunity eventually wanes, so I'll occasionally need a booster to maintain enough protection.
As for why it's so insanely expensive in the U.S, not a fucking clue except to pass the responsibility on to the country's insanely byzantine medical billing and services systems.
In the country I live in (Mexico), the rabies vaccine (not immunoglobulin) costs about $50 per dose in a high-end private clinic and a dose of immunoglobulin about $200. There are also about 350 public health centers nation-wide that offer it for free if you're lucky enough to be close to one.
As for the quality of doctors and the authenticity of medicine in reputable private clinics, in my experience problems are exceptionally rare, Though language barrier might be an issue in some cases.
Not promoting anything specific here either, just describing personal experience from years of living here (and sometimes having needed medical services or medicines)
Because even vaccinations are not universally without risk of complication. See my last cat I had to put to sleep due to complications resulting from an injection site sarcoma as a result of just such a "trivial and routine" vaccination. So, while your flippant attitude toward the matter is noted, it is not appreciated. These things are not without risk in all cases. Bring the damn bat for testing.
The post-exposure treatment for rabies involves immunoglobulin[0], which is not always easily available especially in the kinds of places where rabies is most endemic. The vaccine alone, post-exposure, may not be sufficient.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound a cure, get vaccinated beforehand.
I rescued a pup that was really scared when California was on fire. I also had a few infected bats that were highly aggressive. I know that is not a good test as it can take a while. It would have been nice to get vaccinated but I was just lucky.
The nurse practitioner I saw recommended me to get the vaccine since I was travelling to a place where rabies is endemic.
Cost. And the low likelihood of the bat actually carrying the virus.
> But while it is essential for survival, the first treatment alone can cost more than $15,000 in D.C., leaving patients with unexpected bills and medical debt.
So why go through the trouble and pay $1-2k (plus more for boosters every 2-3 years) if you still need to go to the hospital after you get bitten?
I suspect it wouldn’t cost anywhere near that, as it doesn’t cost anywhere near that in India.
It absolutely can cost that much in America. I see you're not familiar with just how expensive medical treatments in America are.
I have bad news.
Survival in dogs with post-vaccine high-titer challenge is very, very high 5 years after vaccination-- >80%.
> The main benefit of pre-exposure vaccination is that if somehow you have no access to the vaccine the day of exposure, you might still have a (small?) chance of survival.
"Small" chance of survival seems pessimistic as a way to describe this.
The main advantage of vaccination is that if you have an undetected bite or exposure, you are still probably okay. This is something that someone who routinely handles bats or other wildlife that may carry rabies might want.
A secondary advantage is you need half as many post-exposure treatments after a known bite, which are both expensive and painful (immunoglobulin injections all around are not so fun).
Also, "day of" seems like hyperbole: it is routine to wait 10 days for test results of probably-healthy animals before starting post-exposure treatment.