Michigan’s health department announced Thursday a human case of bird flu in a dairy worker. It’s the third human case reported to date in the current U.S. avian flu outbreak among dairy cows.
Unlike the previous two cases which only involved eye infection, this patient has respiratory symptoms, according to a statement from Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive with the Michigan health department. The patient had direct exposure to an infected cow and wasn’t wearing any personal protective equipment.
“This tells us that direct exposure to infected livestock poses a risk to humans,” said Bagdasarian.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that its labs tested a sample from the Michigan patient and confirmed it was H5N1 bird flu. The patient had flu-like symptoms, including a cough and eye discomfort. The patient was treated with antivirals and is isolating at home. No other workers or household contacts of the patient have gotten sick so far.
The CDC said that risk to the general public remains low. Like the other two recent cases, this infection came from direct exposure to an infected animal. “There is no indication of person-to-person spread of A(H5N1) viruses at this time,” according to the CDC.
The CDC is monitoring data from influenza surveillance systems, and said “there has been no sign of unusual influenza activity in people.”
Nonetheless, scientists following the outbreak say this human case is troubling development.
“Our concerns about this outbreak are coming true,” says Dr. Rick Bright, a virologist and the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). “The longer the U.S. allows this outbreak to continue, without appropriate measures to stop it, without conducting testing in cows and people, more people will be at increased risk for exposure and infection.”
If H5N1 becomes highly contagious from human to human it will likely be devastating. It's hard to gauge the exact risk except to say that animal agriculture creates constant conditions for contagious disease to go the other-animal-to-human route and what we're seeing right now is exactly how that happens and eventually becomes human-to-human. Repeated other-animal-to-human infections creates more and more opportunities for viruses to adapt to humans.
Do the things you wish you had done in preparation for COVID. Basically how to live a hermit life but still get your needs met. Backup food, clean water, other consumables (toilet paper ) bidet!), a set of N95 masks to last you several months, social connections and entrainment and anything you might need for self care. Focus on having some savings. If you have the means, some inflation hedging isn't a bad idea, like having some gold.
If you are particularly cool, get involved with mutual aid organizing because it's a much more efficient and impactful way of doing this stuff on a community scale.