2mo ago

How America Lost Control of the Bird Flu, Setting the Stage for Another Pandemic

kffhealthnews.org How America Lost Control of the Bird Flu, Setting the Stage for Another Pandemic - KFF Health News

Exclusive reporting reveals how the United States lost track of a virus that could cause the next pandemic. Problems like the sluggish pace of federal action, a deference to industry, and neglect for the safety of low-wage workers put the country at risk of another health emergency.

Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack.

48 comments

Just in time for a Trump Presidency. This is going to go swimmingly. Hold on to your tits folks, shit's about to get real.
- It would be kind of funny if two "once in a century" pandemic happened right during both of Trump's terms.
  
  It would be if they didn't consistently spin the failures onto their defacto opponents and their base willfully taking their word at face value despite actual evidence to the contrary.
  
  They will then ask for a third term.
- Will RFK Jr be the next Herman Cain?
  
  This would make my year
  
  Don't give me hope.
  
  He will be the next Typhoid Mary.
- Great thing to look forward too. Buy toilet paper now!
  
  Invest in a bidet instead, avoid the problem entirely
- Biden is still President though. It shows that the CDC and FDA have been captured so thoroughly by corporate interests they're just not fit for purpose any more. That's not just Trump's fault, it's decades of chipping away at those agencies by Republicans and corporate Dems.
  
  Stuff like this happens. They are monitoring it. Actions unbeknownst to us are happening. If we get rid of the FDA and CDC, what do you think replaces it? You trust the Cabinet of Trump-supporting billionaires to "think of the people" when coming up with a replacement?
  It's not like Trump would have done anything different than Biden, given Trump's history with COVID-19.
  I don't trust Trump or his cronies to do anything that doesn't benefit them and their wallets.
- As long as there's a good, available vaccine, IDGAF. I'll make sure my family gets quadruply vaccinated, and wait for idiots that reject vaccines to start beefing it.
  https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/872/842/1c4.png
  I will be sad for old folks, babies, people who are pregnant, and the immunocompromised though. We just need to learn this lesson sooner rather than later, before it's something completely fucked up like nipah virus, which will fuck our shit up if we don't have a damn good vaccine and containment protocols in place.
  
  I love how naively you think that you'll be able to get your hands on a vaccine in the US...
  If you're not in the US, lucky for you!

“Experts say they have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain the outbreak.”
Who should have been isolating sick cows from the rest of any given herd? Most of the yahoos with these sick herds welcomed the idea of their Holy Cheeto dismantling “th’ gubmint.” So whose fault is it again?
- The government regulators for being captured by the yahoo ranchers and not listening to the expert virologists
- "I want all of the benefits with none of the costs or inconveniences."
- If it makes you feel better, the CAFOs are putting most of them out of business.
  
  I wish this was an "Animals as leaders" reference, but it refers to "concentrated animal feeding operations"...
  Which I learnt because of Animals as Leaders.
  
  cafos are just one step in the supply chain. they are grazed for about a year then grain finished in a cafo
  
  Who do you think is having unrestrained spread of disease in their herds?

RFK Jr. is going to be heading the Dept. of Health and Human Services....which establishes national vaccine rollout programs. He's an anti-vaxxer. He will do everything in his power to see that any vaccine programs are extremely difficult to rollout if not impossible to establish. Your best bet will likely be full masks and isolation (i.e. 2020 again).
- This is crazy too, because as a falconer RFK should be extremely familiar with bird flu. We've been dealing with it for years and there's a story of someone's falcon or hawk dying from it semi-often. If he's part of a club he'll get HPAI reports even. I went to the national meet a few weeks ago and they separate birds that chase ducks and birds that don't (quarantine zones).
  Although I guess it's possible to know something exists and deny that it has a solution. So dumb.

What do you think, timeline feels similar. What the r value?
Shut down around at Paddy's. I could use another vacation. Fuck that year was awesome.
- Yeah but this time there won’t be any unemployment money and no one will work from home.
  
  acceptable losses.

Oh no! If only there was something we could have done!!!

Luckily my wife and I never stopped masking because we went four years without being sick and it was about when stuff was being relaxed mask wise that we realized we had not gotten our usual yearly cold or flu. Was not sure how long we would make but we got to four years then caught something, not covid and if it was the flue then not to bad a cases but it was noticable enough that we knew our streak as ended.
- You live a sad life
  
  Ikr. wearing a mask is one of the worst things a person can do to themselves. second only to wearing a hat!

There's been multiple reports over the years about how America is vulnerable to disease in livestock and plants. So I'm not really shocked.

48 comments