Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

We won’t go back.

Let there be snark.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: May 15, 2024

COVID-19 Coronavirus (& H5N1) Updates: May 15, 2024

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*Sigh*… It’s a start:

… The new funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, track and treat animals and humans potentially affected by the virus known as Type A H5N1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. And they include about $98 million to provide up to $28,000 each to help individual farms test cattle and bolster biosecurity efforts to halt the spread of the virus, according to the Agriculture Department.

In addition, dairy farmers will be compensated for the loss of milk production from infected cattle, whose supply drops dramatically when they become sick, officials said. And dairy farmers and farm workers would be paid to participate in a workplace study conducted by the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, farmers have been reluctant to allow health officials onto their farms to test cattle because of uncertainty about how it would affect their businesses, researchers have said. Also, farm workers, including many migrant workers, have been reluctant to be tested for fear of missing work or because they didn’t want to be tracked by the government…

The new spending comes more than six weeks after the first-ever detection of an avian bird flu virus in dairy cattle — and one confirmed infection in a Texas dairy worker exposed to infected cows who developed a mild eye infection and then recovered. About 33 people have been tested and another 260 are being monitored, according to the CDC…


 
Thread for nervous wonks:

The political version of Oppositional Defiance Disorder (and the professional grifters who fatten off them):

… Since March 25, when the bird flu virus was confirmed in U.S. cattle for the first time, weekly sales of raw cow’s milk have ticked up 21% to as much as 65% compared with the same periods a year ago, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ…

… CDC officials warned last week that people who drink raw milk could theoretically become infected if the bird flu virus comes in contact with receptors in the nose, mouth and throat or by inhaling virus into the lungs. There’s also concern that if more people are exposed to the virus, it could mutate to spread more easily in people.

States have widely varying regulations regarding raw milk, with some allowing retail sales in stores and others allowing sale only at farms. Some states allow so-called cowshares, where people pay for milk from designated animals, and some allow consumption only by farm owners, employees or “non-paying guests.”…

From 1998 to 2018, the CDC documented more than 200 illness outbreaks traced to raw milk, which sickened more than 2,600 people and hospitalized more than 225.

Raw milk is far more likely than pasteurized milk to cause illnesses and hospitalizations linked to dangerous bacteria such as campylobacter, listeria, salmonella and E. coli, research shows…

I’m willing to allow the argument that raw milk ‘tastes better’, but right now, I wouldn’t drink unprocessed milk even from a cow I *did* know personally!
 

***********

 


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Check your test kits!

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I understand (even if I don’t agree personally) with the widely cross-partisan impulse to want to forget the 2020 COVID / zombie-apocalypse-vibe period ever happened, but that doesn’t stop me from getting physically furious whenever I see the “better off now than you were four years ago” poll Q

— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) May 12, 2024 at 8:51 PM

Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    p.a.

    Turns out, the Obama-era snark of “Don’t eat tire rims and anthrax!”  “Hey Libs, we demand tire rims and anthrax!!”, isn’t snark.

    😱😡

  3. 3.

    prostratedragon

    So far, farmers have been reluctant to allow health officials onto their farms to test cattle because of uncertainty about how it would affect their businesses, researchers have said. Also, farm workers, including many migrant workers, have been reluctant to be tested for fear of missing work or because they didn’t want to be tracked by the government…

    *Sigh* indeed. Yesterday was the four-year anniversary of this gem.

  6. 6.

    Rusty

    Reading history I would see various behaviors, mass hysteria, crazy movements and more, and would think how stupid, superstitious and worse were people back then.  We are so much smarter now.  After COVID, and seeing Trump, RFK Jr., the Brihana Joy Taylor’s of the world, I realize I was the dumb one.  People haven’t changed.  It some ways it’s worse with mass communication and especially the internet,  the speed and distribution of garbage is more comprehensive.   Which is why I also think it’s completely possible we reelection Trump.   As a group we really are that dumb.

  7. 7.

    BruceFromOhio

    A family member was rendered sterile as a direct result of consuming raw milk. Perhaps letting the marks drink as much as they want can yield useful results.

  8. 8.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @BruceFromOhio: I ‘m enough of a bitch to actually be ok at this point letting the adult Raw Milk idiots die from their own stupidity, except for two things 1) I do care if they feed raw milk to their children and it sickens or kills those children 2) I do care if the raw milk users get TB, ecoli, campylobacter, or H5N1 avian influenza and pass it to others.

  9. 9.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I can’t believe raw milk tastes that much different from pasteurized milk especially if it’s cold or hot.  I can’t imagine somebody wanting to drink room temperature milk. Massie is a nutjob and a Russian asset to boot.

  10. 10.

    Lapassionara

    Many thanks, AL. Your weekly reports on COVID and H5N1 are much appreciated.

  11. 11.

    New Deal democrat

    Good news and bad news this week.

    The first bad news is that hospitalizations data was discontinued on May 1, so we can no longer directly track those trends. The second bad news is that wastewater particles ticked up slightly (about 1%) in BIobot’s update yesterday. The CDC’s wastewater update last Friday showed a continued slight decrease.

    The first good news is that wastewater particle levels from both sources remain close to all time lows. The second, and best, good news is that deaths continued to decline through the week of April 13 to 512, the lowest level ever except for two weeks last July. Trends in the partial data through May 4 make it a near certainty that the all time low of 491 weekly deaths will be broken.

    Last Friday’s variants update showed that the various new KP.x subvariants only grew slowly to about 40% of all cases, with the JN.x subvariants making up the other 60%.

  12. 12.

    Betty

    Agree with Anne about not drinking raw milk even from cows you know. We used to get raw milk from a farmer with just a few cows and always pasteurized it ourselves. Why take chances like that?

  13. 13.

    Soprano2

    @Rusty: I firmly believe that human nature doesn’t change over time. Society and culture changes, but human nature doesn’t. That’s why you see this over and over again.

    I don’t necessarily think it’s bad that people remember TFG’s behavior when he was president more than anything else, because that could include things that happened during Covid. I think the truth is most people want to put the Covid years in the rear view mirror, and that would be true regardless of who the president was at the time it happened. I understand the “Roaring ’20’s” a lot better now than I did before Covid.

  14. 14.

    Rusty

    @Mai Naem mobile: I made the mistake of clicking through to Massie’s post and reading the comments.  We are doomed.  Reminder to self, never read the comments accept at sites or from people you know.

  15. 15.

    Soprano2

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: It’s amazing to me that we’ve discovered that a lot more people have Oppositional Defiance Disorder than we thought, because that’s what this is. Perhaps we should tell them the government thinks they should breathe and eat food, and see what happens. LOL

  16. 16.

    SomeRandomFellow

    Re: raw milk, I found it interesting how it’s discussed. For example, I saw one idiot saying that pasteurized milk doesn’t contain additional nutrients. Well, if you know what pasteurization *does*, you’d know that’s so fucked in the head it belongs on Better Call Saul. I saw someone else complain about homogenization, which is what means you don’t pour 2% milk on your cereal, when your older sibling has a massive cream mustache.

    (Pasteur figured out how to kill the right microbes in milk so it remains both nutritious, and nontoxic, for a much longer time. Homogenization means your milk doesn’t get a thick layer of (truly delicious) cream on top, *but*, that also  means even little siblings get equally delicious, cream-full milk.)

    Can raw milk be used safely? Sure – otherwise, everyone who ate camembert would get sick. The funny thing is, raw milk is one of the original public health issues. If you’re the dairy farmer, you can make sure you get a clean run of raw milk, make sure it’s been immediately refrigerated, and kept *cold* constantly. You’ll know if one of your cows is looking a bit poorly, and keep her out of that milking, just in case. Then, you can say that this raw milk is fair-to-middling safe.

    What if you then sell it to a grocer? Well, with good food regulation, you *could* still sell it to a grocer, if you process and package it property, so that you can track each ounce of milk, so, if something goes wrong, you can immediately say “this is the milk from a bad batch; here’s how customers can identify it.”

    Of course, if milk is properly pasteurized, there’s far less risk, and far less tracking needed. So all we have to do is have a small compromise, right? More labeling and tracking for raw phphbbbbb

    BWAH HA HA HA HA!

    I had you going, didn’t I? Small compromise? COMPROMISE? WITH REPUBLICANS? Oh, I just KILL myself – thankfully, slower than MAGAworld!

    Anyway, please tip your wait staff, and say something nice to Steffie, it’s her birthday, and heheheh… compromise. COMPROMISE! Oh, man. I’ll come in again.

  17. 17.

    soapdish

    Norwegian study: People who have had Covid-19 have a poorer memory. They also have a worse memory than those who have not had Covid-19.”

    I get that the first sentence doesn’t indicate what they’re comparing “a poorer memory” to and so the comparison isn’t entirely clear, but by implication don’t those two sentences mean the same thing?

  18. 18.

    Glidwrith

    @soapdish: They had folks to test before and after Covid, comparing their performance to themselves as opposed to others.

    Yes, the sentence is poorly worded.

  19. 19.

    H.E.Wolf

    @soapdish: 

    Norwegian study: People who have had Covid-19 have a poorer memory. They also have a worse memory than those who have not had Covid-19.”

    I get that the first sentence doesn’t indicate what they’re comparing “a poorer memory” to and so the comparison isn’t entirely clear, but by implication don’t those two sentences mean the same thing?
    ​

     I just figured that the person who wrote the article had had Covid-19….

  21. 21.

    Another Scott

    The denialism about COVID-19 is infuriating, but not surprising.  Americans memory-holed the Flu Pandemic in the early 20th century.  We can’t let them gaslight us.

    The raw-milk nonsense isn’t surprising either.  It never goes away.  Humans want to go back to “simpler, purer, safer times” when food didn’t have to be processed (like cooked properly) to keep from killing us.  They’re determined to let truthiness over-rule science.  The battle is never over.  The press trying to “both sides” this thing is yet another illustration of the broken media environment these days.

    Grr…

    Thanks for all you do, AL.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  22. 22.

    Dagaetch

    That poll “one thing you remember about Trump’s presidency” is a terrible question to ask imo. His term in office was so horrifying that I think plenty of us who remember COVID vividly still wouldn’t automatically put it as the first thing to come to mind. That said, putting ‘the economy’ so highly is probably the people who pay zero attention to politics and barely know who IS the president, much less what they’re doing.

  23. 23.

    MazeDancer

    There are 3 excellent dairies within reach of me that sell raw milk. And it does taste better.

    But going to stick with their yogurt for now. Also, there are two more dairies that have excellent, pasteurized half & half which I can continue to support.

    My main concern about dairies is the same as pasteurized chicken – animal life. Then taste. But not dying now enters the chat.

  24. 24.

    soapdish

    @H.E.Wolf: hahaha I thought the same thing.

    Also:
    From the Time article:
    Officials sometimes argue that “public-health guidance is limited by what people are willing to do,” Jirmanus says. “But what people are willing to do is shaped by what experts tell them.”

    But from the PBS article:
    “People are seeking raw milk like crazy,” he said, noting that no bird flu has been detected in his herds or in California. “Anything that the FDA tells our customers to do, they do the opposite.”

    And this is why the professionals are frustrated. I don’t blame them in the slightest.

  25. 25.

    TBone

    Whatever strain of Covid I caught recently is fucking horrid.  Symptoms cycle every few days now as opposed to every few weeks.  I am fully boosted, to no avail.  My already suboptimal immune system is on the ropes.  Wear your masks, people!  Also, all my cats are still sick too.

  26. 26.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @TBone: oh no, that sucks, I hope you feel better soon with no complications or anything.  Is it too late to get anything that will lessen the severity?  I am trying to avoid people for a while since getting surgery but my husband has to work and he says hardly any one is masking anymore.

  27. 27.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Soprano2: I often lately think the same thing. Humans, at least many of us, truely suck at understanding relative risk. Example-Is there a (very very low) risk that a vaccine could cause a serious adverse reaction in someone’s child? Sure, BUT is there a much higher risk that your unvaccinated child will either get a preventable illness or pass one on to a vulnerable person, yup, especially if you live in an area where lots of other people don’t vax their kids…

    I work in a lab and over hear people talking about not trusting the Covid boosters on the regular  I swear sometimes humans are too stupid to live

  28. 28.

    glc

    #Today in 1796, Edward Jenner administered the first successful vaccination against smallpox, which was also the first vaccination ever.

    That’s a bit extravagant. Used in China since the 10th century, famously introduced into England by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, among others. She died in 1762 so one presumes this was done before 1796. (Spiritualism came into vogue much later.) She learned of the practice in Turkey when her husband was ambassador there.  Which is not to deny that Jenner made a major technical advance, which led to the current terminology.

  29. 29.

    Chet Murthy

    @SomeRandomFellow: “Can raw milk be used safely?”

    When I lived in France, I read an article about listeria in France.  Apparently it’s much more common in raw-milk cheese, and so periodically it’d show up in some grocery store’s cheese, and people would get sickened.  The French had a flying squad  of food detectives to figure out where the listeria was coming from, trace it back to the point of production, get all the other batches off the shelves, as quickly as possible.  It was a serious effort, and there wasn’t any “oh let them self-regulate about it” bullshit.

    One can imagine setting up something like that in the US ….. sometime after the heat-death of the universe I suppose.  We’re not going to do it, and hence, raw milk is just too damn dangerous for us.

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