“I’m trying to resist being an alarmist,” but

And we’re not yet over the PTSD from COVID-19

As if America needed another reason not to hand the White House again to Donald “88 Counts” Trump. Do we really want Dr. Bleach-and-Light Enemas recommending quack remedies and maskless Everydays should we face another deadly pandemic?

NPR:

Officially, there is only one documented case of bird flu spilling over from cows into humans during the current U.S. outbreak.

But epidemiologist Gregory Gray suspects the true number is higher, based on what he heard from veterinarians, farm owners and the workers themselves as the virus hit their herds in his state.

“We know that some of the workers sought medical care for influenza-like illness and conjunctivitis at the same time the H5N1 was ravaging the dairy farms,” says Gray, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

“I don’t have a way to measure that, but it seems biologically quite plausible that they too, are suffering from the virus,” he says.

Dr. Irwin Redlener (remember him from 2020?) is concerned:

Mostly dramatically speeding up and ramping up vaccine development and production.
And making sure we have sufficient supplies of face masks, hospital equipment and planning for pandemics reviewed by all health care systems and providers. https://t.co/Ev0bGfMe1e

— Irwin Redlener, MD (@IrwinRedlenerMD) May 2, 2024

NBC News:

The U.S. has two vaccines ready should the strain of bird flu circulating in dairy cows begin spreading easily to people, federal health officials said Wednesday. They could begin shipping doses widely within weeks, if needed.

So far, there’s no evidence that H5N1 is spreading person-to-person, although one dairy worker in Texas who worked closely with infected cattle had a mild infection and developed conjunctivitis, or pinkeye, in April. 

At a briefing Wednesday, government health officials said they are preparing for a potential scenario of H5N1 jumping from animal to person — or person to person. The virus has taken off in dairy cows, infecting at least 36 herds across nine states, raising concerns that it could acquire mutations that would make it easier to spill over into humans.

Studies “suggest that the vaccines will offer good cross-protection against cattle outbreak viruses,” Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on the call Wednesday.

I’m still running into friends I haven’t seen since COVID-19 hit.

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