Discussion
What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic
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To combat bird flu spread, other countries have authorized poultry vaccines. The U.S. hasn’t, amid political and economic pushback. Without a vaccine, experts say the virus poses an escalating threat: “The minute it transmits to humans, it’s done.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/bird-flu-airborne-usda-pandemic?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
@ProPublica We learned nothing from Covid. Well, some of us did, but not enough, and certainly not enough decision-makers.
@ProPublica This may be how the American experiment in democracy ends, with vast segments of the population dead from an avian flu variant that causes people to shit on each other.
Egg producers suspect bird flu is traveling through the air.
The USDA didn’t test the theory after a disastrous Midwestern outbreak. Here’s how we did.
https://www.propublica.org/article/methodology-bird-flu-outbreak-ohio-indiana?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Data #Research #Science #Health #PublicHealth #BirdFlu
@ProPublica We used to raise chickens. We also believe it's travelling by air, but on the wing, not via airborne virions (or the same carried on particles, which would be more likely). Birds fly. Even chickens fly (not well). A virus transmissible between birds already has an available airborne vector; it doesn't require any special mutation. There is a relationship between weather and birds, but it's extremely complex. (Like the n-Body Problem.) It's real, but incalculable.
/cont-2
@ProPublica 2/ I want to be clear, we don't DISMISS the potential for airborne transmission. But it requires special data that's unusually difficult to produce.
Whether it is or not, though, does not excuse US intransigence on this. We're able to limit this right now, no matter how it spreads, and we're not.
USDA hiding Bird Flu data from independent analysts:
"This analysis doesn’t account for how much infectious material would have actually been spreading in the environment. That would require additional information, like how many chickens were sick and at what rate. The USDA returned a public records request that likely would have contained some of those facts, but every piece of information was redacted."
https://www.propublica.org/article/methodology-bird-flu-outbreak-ohio-indiana
@ProPublica this is amazing. I was emphasizing about the data hoops and chuckled at the end.
I would suggest these changes to USDA's initial response to bird flu. The unique mutations from Howe's Hens are key. When bird flu is first detected in an area feed Genlab data into Nexstrain in a deliberate attempt to find an unique identifier/mutations. You don't know if this is farm zero. Thus, backtracking if it is not farm zero will help you paramatize models, response(s), etc. 1/
@ProPublica These will be important as we paramatize model,etc. In next steps. Also not to say/forget it came from somewhere.
@ProPublica why do u have to test - this is a known fact - see covid
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