sport of sacred spherical cowsRazorcake Webcomic #480 by Silas Haglund
❖ #WearAMask #PunksNotDead #CovidIsNotOver #BirdFluBegins #punk #RSV #Flu #COVID19
sport of sacred spherical cowsStrangely reassured by statistic that over two in five Usians don't believe our SARS pandemic is over.
Strangely reassured by statistic that two in five Usians recognize that life will never get "back to normal".
Less reassured that near three in ten Usians believe they haven't been infected. Nowhere near that many are taking precautions, so belief is just that.
Still less reassured that none of these statistics in any way reflect preparedness for our pending H5N1 pandemic.
Genotype map of HPAI #H5N1, via GISAID.
"Showing 137 of 137 genomes collected between Dec 2020 and Feb 2025, last updated 2025-02-23"
To be clear, GISAID originally stood for "Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data".
Also, as a reminder, there was a different Usian president in office for the period from late January 2021 to early Jan 2025.
Took four years for the global initiative for sharing avian influenza data to collect 137 North American #BirdFlu samples, include dairy cow, avian, human, guineafowl, other mammals, chicken and pheasant.
By comparison, #CDC has tested ~136,000 specimens (about 800 of those humans). Sounds like a lot, right?
That's across 166 Million affected poultry and near a thousand dairy herds. (Current cattle herd numbers reflect anywhere from 1 to 30 cases in three states.)
Pathetic.
Without sequence data, there's no way to reliably track evolution of the virus. Statistical samples don't work from happenstance.
To put recent news—of #influenza deaths exceeding #covid deaths—in context, #CDC now has preliminary #flu burden estimates for season ended Sept 2024.
#PublicHealth surveillance systems have never been adequate for tracking flu, so CDC uses models to arrive at estimates.
By comparison, covid mortality reflects actual deaths reported as due to covid. There's no comparable covid burden modeling being done, so covid deaths believed misreported—as "natural causes" or otherwise—don't show up in this figure.
End of last flu season, annualized covid mortality was more than double estimated influenza burden deaths.
Covid death reporting began sharp deceleration in December, after spike in July/August. Such drop-off in reporting must be taken into account when comparing mortality stats.
Won't likely see flu burden estimates for this new season until early next year. But we know non-#BirdFlu flu is stressing hospitals, and #H5N1 cases have gone unrecognized.
As for the why testing, CDC guidance:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2829941
As for why little being said? It might interfere with brunch.
Of course, outdoor cats also kill and eat wild birds, or else bring them home as gifts, so there could be a more direct line of transmission.
But for the variants specifically adapted to mammals, escape by way of mammalian carriers—interfacing with concentrated industrial bioreactor facilities—is still gonna be part of this.
They caught this case, even if it did get immediately redacted from public record.
But not everyone who gets bird flu is gonna recognize it as bird flu. If it comes to them through a chain of transmission from farms to feral cats to outdoor cats, an entire household might come down with a nasty "flu".
If it doesn't hospitalize any of them immediately, no one will think anything of it—because their suburban or exurban community ain't in farm country. Kids get pink eye all the time.
So they'll walk around, relying on OTC remedies, spreading it to neighbors and co-workers and schoolmates and fellow shoppers in the drug store aisle.
And only when hospitals—already short on staff—see it in E/Rs and wards, as more vulnerable neighbors start dropping, will there be actual patients to swab and sequence.
And again, we knew about this April of last year! The redactions in February of 2025 are what they are, but we knew about this during the prior administration!
Same #CDC.
"The data suggests an infected cat might have spread the virus to a human adolescent."
*stares in what-have-I-been-warning-for-the-better-part-of-a-year*
Oh, me?
Just sitting here, wondering how much GISAID data for the U.S. there will be from late January forward. (Raj's dashboard last shows data through the 17th.)
Aware that #CDC long ago would have preferred to stop publishing #covid variants estimates, am expecting to not see same updated this Friday.
They stopped publishing all other related data long before now, and still weren't publishing anything useful wrt #BirdFlu, as of close of last administration.
So now we wait to see how much compliance in advance impacts academic researchers submitting data to a global non-profit. (Let alone how much of U.S. GISAID data may be typically provided by gov't researchers.)
Yes, GISAID was founded in opposition to WHO's proprietary data practices. But also, GISAID's public domain ethos is close enough in spirit to F/OSS that it might just as readily be a target of isolationist fervor.
So, it's wait in see.