Bird flu may simply have to work its way through all the dairies–the “let ‘er rip” strategy may be the only realistic one
Over 2/3 of California's 984 dairies already affected
Since the first identification of three infected herds there in late August, California authorities have found the virus in 659 of the state’s 984 dairies — one-quarter of them in the last month alone.
But some experts suspect that the end-of-summer slowdown had more to do with the virus running out of new, immune-naive herds to hop into.
In Colorado, for instance, H5N1 went through 74% of the state’s herds before it began to peter out. Payne believes that even with all the measures California farmers are taking, the virus won’t slow down until it has infected 80% to 90% of the state’s herds.
The government can’t afford to cull most of the dairy stock in this country or even just in California (which produces the most milk of any state). The vast majority of cows get over the infection and return to good milk production. Cows are expensive.
I heard via the grapevine that California’s Raw Farm has tested negative on PCR tests for bird flu for a few weeks but has not been allowed to start shipping milk again.
If bird flu does simply transit through the dairy farms, resulting in a nation of immune milk cows, will that put a crimp in federal plans to roll out a bird flu pandemic or a vaccine, or both? Will the federal government follow the advice of the Great Barrington Declaration and traditional public health practice and stop the hype and fear?
Will Trump’s election and Mr. Kennedy have a massive effect on public health policy? I don’t know the answer.
Two articles are out today in the NEJM about recent bird flu cases in humans, expanding our knowledge:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2414610—46 mild cases
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2415890—the severe Canadian case
The person in British Columbia who was severely ill was a 13 year old girl with co-morbidities of mild asthma and obesity. She had multiple respiratory samples test positive for H5N1 bird flu during November 8-12; all specimens thereafter were negative. She presented initially with pink eye and fever, was sent home from the ER, and returned severely ill. Her treatments involved ECMO, ventilation, prolonged dialysis and plasma exchange. She received 3 antivirals. Tests were negative for viral resistance to the antiviral drugs, but it is unclear whether they led to any benefit.
Her current status was unstated, but since all the treatments I mentioned have ended, she did survive—but persisting symptoms, if any, are unknown to this reader.