Clean the Air ffs. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2478252-air-filters-in-classrooms-reduce-sick-days-by-more-than-10-per-cent/
#CleanAir #CovidIsNotOver #COVIDisAirborne #Measles #MeaslesIsAirborne #Influenza #FluIsAirborne #LongCovid #pwme
#FluIsAirborne
So H5N1 :virus: really must be airborne?! 💨
:questionbox: Were the birds not at other risk?
👉 These chickens are kept at "the highest biosecurity standards." ⛓️🔒⛓️ [1]
:questionbox: Ok but maybe humans broke the rules?
👉 there was a "complete absence of any interaction between the companies, even through third parties involved in feed replenishment, waste disposal or the transport of carcasses to rendering plants. All farms used their own well water supplies. In addition, the employees were not allowed to keep their own poultry. Therefore, in view of the biosecurity measures in place, the possibility of human-associated secondary spread [...] can be excluded." [1]
:questionbox: Wouldn't different caged birds 🐔 have different exposures to outside air though?
👉 "It is noteworthy that in the affected houses, the infection and subsequent mortality started in the areas closest to the air inlets" [1]
:questionbox: 8km long transmission though? Wouldn't that require the wind to line up just right?
👉 temperatures were 🌡️ warm and stable, keeping between 6°C and 11 °C, and "conditions were remarkable [...] with continuous wind from the west or southwest (250-300 degrees), [...] at the highest wind speeds [...] enabling the virus to reach [downstream birds] within 13-22 min" [1]
:questionbox: Was it even really the same disease, for sure?
👉 "genetic identity ✔️ between the H5N1 strains in the donor and recipient farms" [1]
:questionbox: Maybe it got in sooooome other way?
👉 "all possible alternative routes of infection during this period were excluded by our 🕵️ field investigation." [1]
:questionbox: but another result found no influenza in the air!
👉 "the failure to detect IAV particles away from infected farms must not be taken as evidence of the infeasibility of windborne spread. Indeed, when sampling was correlated with careful estimation of wind direction, IAV particles were detected in air collected up to 1.5 and 2.1 km from affected farms, indicating true wind-mediated dispersal."
5/5 🧵about [1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637829v1.full.pdf
#H5N1 #birdFlu #influenza #fluIsAirborne #influenzaIsAirborne #windborne #windborneTransmission
They show "empirical genetic evidence supporting the windborne transmission of the H5N1 HPAI virus over a distance of 8 km, [...] combined with a detailed epizootiological investigation and strong correlation with weather conditions, confirms that wind can transport infectious virus particles over substantial distances and, thereby, facilitate the spread of HPAI between poultry farms."
4/🧵about https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637829v1.full.pdf
#H5N1 #birdFlu #influenza #fluIsAirborne #influenzaIsAirborne #respiratoryDiseasesAreAirborne
To reiterate: ⚠️ "The veterinarians suggest the only possibility left is that the VIRUS WAS CARRIED ALOFT BY THE WIND and wafted into the barn, settling on the captive birds" and infecting them! ⚠️
3/🧵about https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637829v1.full.pdf
#H5N1 #birdFlu #influenza #fluIsAirborne #influenzaIsAirborne #respiratoryDiseasesAreAirborne
h/t @JoePajak
Is H5N1 definitely airborne? Convincing proof would have to have unbelievable controls!
"veterinarians were conducting research on a highly secure chicken research farm—the birds there were not allowed out of their cages or barns. The water came from a secure well and was filtered to remove pathogens. The barns have large fans that create a one-way airflow, and the entire facility is surrounded by a highly secure fence.
Also, no employees came into contact with any other birds when not on duty. Still, the farm experienced an infection. The veterinarians suggest the only possibility left is that the virus was carried aloft by the wind and wafted into the barn, settling on the captive birds." [1]
Yup that would do it!
[1] https://phys.org/news/2025-02-evidence-windborne-h5n1-viral-infections.html
2/🧵 about https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637829v1.full.pdf
h/t @JoePajak
#H5N1 #birdFlu #influenza #fluIsAirborne #influenzaIsAirborne #respiratoryDiseasesAreAirborne
Could H5N1 be spread for multiple kilometres by air?
"some reports have proposed that windborne spread plays a significant role in IAV [Influenza A Virus] transmission over longer distances under suitable weather conditions.
➡️ In studies of the severe H7N7 HPAI [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] outbreak in the Netherlands in 2003, one study claimed that wind spread accounted for 18% and another 24% of transmission events up to 25 km.
➡️ Similarly, during the 2007 equine H3N8 influenza outbreak in Australia, 81% of infections within a cluster of 437 horse farms were attributed to windborne spread over a distance of 1-2 km.
➡️ Around the same time, the serological screening of turkeys in Minnesota in 2007-08 revealed that turkey premises within a 1.9 km radius of swine farms were most likely to test seropositive for H3N2 and H1N1 IAVs, thereby suggesting windborne transmission.
➡️ And during the 2014-15 multistate H5N2 HPAI outbreak in the USA, it was estimated that up to 39% of farms in Iowa alone could have experienced windborne infection within a radius of 8.5 km"
1/🧵from this preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637829v1.full.pdf
h/t @JoePajak
#H5N1 #birdFlu #influenza #fluIsAirborne #influenzaIsAirborne #respiratoryDiseasesAreAirborne #pandemic #publicHealth #health #disease
"An additional experiment performed in a full-scale house shows that 46.8% of [fluorescent particles] formerly seeded on clothing resuspended from clothing and dispersed around the house during the 1-h period of light walking at a speed of 60 steps/min."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132321009720
#PublicHealth #ResuspendedAerosols #CovidIsAirborne #FluIsAirborne
"Rapid spread of H5N1 bird flu through California dairy herds suggests unknown paths of transmission. Experts are skeptical that USDA's theory of viral spread is telling the whole story.
[...] A USDA spokesperson told STAT in an email that all the research to date suggests that transmission of H5N1 between cattle is largely believed to be due to fomites — that is, objects that come into contact with cattle that carry the virus on them, for example milking equipment and people’s clothing" [1].
The USDA is still bending over backwards to avoid the overwhelming likelihood that bird flu is spreading between cows through the air, based on -- from what I can tell -- evidence from *ferrets,* who were infected with bovine-isolated H5N1 and did not shed much of it into the air [2]. The USDA's Agricultural Research Service could go into barns with air samplers and settle this for good, but won't 🫠
1. https://www.statnews.com/2024/12/20/california-h5n1-bird-flu-emergency-declaration-avian-flu-spread-dairy-cattle/
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01885-6
Gonna go off a bit here. "Contact" can mean within breathing distance of a goose for long enough to inhale whatever the goose -- or geese -- were exhaling and/or aerosolizing from the water (not mutually exclusive), in which case the teen had contact with geese in downtown Chilliwack.
Exhibit A: https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/comments/1gsgpux/comment/lxee853/
Exhibit B: https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/comments/1gsgpux/comment/lxe9bqr/
The obvious disclaimer is that this is speculative, but epidemiology usually is. What #CovidIsAirborne taught me is that when epidemiologists don't like the conclusions they find, they either invent one, or -- barring that -- declare it an unsolvable mystery. I can only assume it's so that people don't panic when geese are removed from a lake because they might infect someone by aerosol, outdoors, the very-uncomfortably-possible reality we now live in. #FluIsAirborne
@jmcrookston
2024 version:
It's a mystery!!!
Maybe it's in the water?! Or the grass they shared?
There was no 'close contact'?!!
/S
It's progress, you know? The CDC says that bird flu is airborne, except they seem to have forgotten that birds have airways and exhale air
@currentbias @PacificNic
#FluIsAirborne
Always has been, and is the dominant mode of transmission.
This constant forgetting of what we already know is exhausting.
He must have been indoors with that goose, since we all know viruses don't spread well outdoors /s
These were apparently geese from a lake in downtown Chilliwack. Another comment in this thread (by the same user) shows a screenshot from Facebook of someone wondering why geese were being removed from the lake:
https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/comments/1gsgpux/comment/lxe9bqr/
Some juicy "respirators = bad" propaganda spotted in the trailer for The Amateur
@GeorgiaOnMyMind
Not masking is suicide. Only question is how fast it might disable or kill you.
Literally killing yourself to fit in ..
"US to research possible respiratory spread of bird flu in cows"
It only took, what -- several months?
CDC (deliberately?) misunderstands airborne spread for H5N1.
Finally we get a definition of 'close' or 'direct' contact: They put them in the same enclosure; air was obviously not eliminated.
They're confusing transmissibility (R0) with mode.
"In terms of spread, the CDC ferret study found that the A/Texas/37/2024 virus spread easily among ferrets (3 of 3 ferrets, or 100%) in direct contact with infected ferrets (placed in the same enclosure). However, the virus was less capable of spreading by respiratory droplets, which was tested by placing infected ferrets in enclosures next to healthy ferrets (with shared air but without direct contact). In that situation, only 1 of 3 ferrets (33%) became infected, and there was a one- or two-day delay in transmission with the A/Texas/37/2024 virus compared to transmission with seasonal flu viruses. This suggests that A/Texas/37/2024-like viruses would need to undergo changes to spread efficiently by droplets through the air, such as from coughs and sneezes."
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2023-2024/ferret-study-results.htm
h/t kcarruthers@kcar.me
"That’s a better scenario for public health than transmission through airborne particles, which would be more difficult to contain."
It can be both, though -- the references cited don't rule out airborne transmission. Ref 4 mentions it "cannot be excluded,” and ref 5 mentions relevant receptors are found in the respiratory tract
"On the basis of these data, [Lakdawala] urges farms to consider [...] installing proper ventilation [...]"
There we go 😮💨
"On 24 April, the USDA mandated testing of lactating dairy cows prior to their movement between states, and reporting of positive influenza A test results in livestock."
This is why I'm going so hard with #FluIsAirborne. When air is left out of the conversation, nothing gets done to stop non-lactating cows -- you know, the ones that still have lungs, and can breathe -- from continuing to spread airborne #H5N1
This is just #PublicHealth theater (again)
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