3 ms·

There we go again. We should expect to see more of these things. Many closely related animals confined in a small space, with humans around, is not a good recip

There we go again. We should expect to see more of these things. Many closely related animals confined in a small space, with humans around, is not a good recipe. "Given the presence of bird flu on the premises, all 1.8 million birds need to be culled, aka "depopulated." " Can you picture 1.8 million birds? Now picture them all being gassed. Now, I'm not vegan but that's grim. "Workers are tasked with placing the birds in the chambers, which only hold a few dozen birds at a time. In all, the method requires workers to have a high degree of contact with the infected birds, going from bird to bird and batch to batch with the carts." What a great idea.

ceejayoz 2y ago
At least we're finding the mortality rate isn't the 50% of early cases. That's a significant relief. (Presumably because we've been having low/no symptom cases that went undetected for a while.)
- deleted 2y ago
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- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  Paul Offit (infectious disease physician and vaccine expert) doesn't think that this h5n1 is likely to become a human pandemic: Humans express the alpha-2,3 sialic acid receptor on cells that line the surface of the eye (which explains why the dairy farm worker in Texas had severe conjunctivitis). The alpha-2,3 sialic acid receptor is also found on cells that line the lung. However, and most importantly, the alpha-2,3 sialic acid receptor is NOT found in cells that line the upper respiratory tract. This means that H5 viruses cannot reproduce themselves in the upper respiratory tract and thus be easily transmitted from one person to another. It also means that H5 viruses cannot amplify themselves in the upper respiratory tract, where hundreds of virus particles can become millions of virus particles. https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/h5n1-influenza-virus-bird-flu-is https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/h5n1-influenza-virus-bird-f...
  - dopylitty 2y ago
    Paul’s great but this is a little outdated. The variant in Colorado has both alpha-2,3 and alpha-2,6[0] 0: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6
doomrobo 2y ago
What’s grim? 9.4 billion chickens are killed every year in the US. That’s 25.7 million a day https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/statistic/broiler-industry-key-facts/ https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/statistic/broiler-ind...
- wyre 2y ago
  Grim is the thought experiment of imagining 1.8 million chicken's being gassed to death. It's nearly psychopathic to think it's not just because human's kill exponentially more everyday. Not to disimiliar to brushing off someone's dying in a car accident because there's over 40,000 motor vehicle fatalities a year.
  - throwaway3306a 2y ago
    But that's what we do, don't we? You don't care about someone on the other side of the world dying on the road, or the next city over. It's not even newspaper-worthy. It's just another day.
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everforward 2y ago
The US slaughters ~25 million chickens per day (9 billion per year). It’s grim, but its not that much of an outlier.

ceejayoz 2y ago

At least we're finding the mortality rate isn't the 50% of early cases. That's a significant relief. (Presumably because we've been having low/no symptom cases that went undetected for a while.)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
UncleOxidant 2y ago
Paul Offit (infectious disease physician and vaccine expert) doesn't think that this h5n1 is likely to become a human pandemic: Humans express the alpha-2,3 sialic acid receptor on cells that line the surface of the eye (which explains why the dairy farm worker in Texas had severe conjunctivitis). The alpha-2,3 sialic acid receptor is also found on cells that line the lung. However, and most importantly, the alpha-2,3 sialic acid receptor is NOT found in cells that line the upper respiratory tract. This means that H5 viruses cannot reproduce themselves in the upper respiratory tract and thus be easily transmitted from one person to another. It also means that H5 viruses cannot amplify themselves in the upper respiratory tract, where hundreds of virus particles can become millions of virus particles. https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/h5n1-influenza-virus-bird-flu-is https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/h5n1-influenza-virus-bird-f...
- dopylitty 2y ago
  Paul’s great but this is a little outdated. The variant in Colorado has both alpha-2,3 and alpha-2,6[0] 0: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07766-6

doomrobo 2y ago

What’s grim? 9.4 billion chickens are killed every year in the US. That’s 25.7 million a day https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/statistic/broiler-industry-key-facts/ https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/statistic/broiler-ind...

wyre 2y ago
Grim is the thought experiment of imagining 1.8 million chicken's being gassed to death. It's nearly psychopathic to think it's not just because human's kill exponentially more everyday. Not to disimiliar to brushing off someone's dying in a car accident because there's over 40,000 motor vehicle fatalities a year.
- throwaway3306a 2y ago
  But that's what we do, don't we? You don't care about someone on the other side of the world dying on the road, or the next city over. It's not even newspaper-worthy. It's just another day.

deleted 2y ago

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everforward 2y ago

The US slaughters ~25 million chickens per day (9 billion per year). It’s grim, but its not that much of an outlier.