New outbreak in 44 kids at a middle school in Israel 🇮🇱 with #DeltaVariant, the second such outbreak at a school this week—both Delta. Several fully vaccinated adults also infected at school. 🇮🇱 also recently stop requiring #COVID19 tests upon arrival. 🧵 timesofisrael.com/in-2nd-israeli…
2) Israel just approved vaccines for kids 12-15 in early June so kids under 16 haven’t been fully vaccinated yet. But even if fully vaccinated, while lower risk, #DeltaVariant is still problematic.
3) for those who try to say / claim that kids don’t get sick… 1% hospitalization among kids in UK during #DeltaVariant era is too damn high. Would you roll the dice with 1% hospitalization risk for your kids?
8) Let’s see what UK’s CDC-equivalent PHE found for transmission source during the new surge of #DeltaVariant cases…. Schools. By leaps and bounds.
9) How the hell did we screw up this pediatric Covid thing so badly? Because we didn’t test kids much last year. And variants are much different than old strain. And hence we assumed nothing changed and got complacent.
10) Delta definitely affects kids a lot. Scores of reports from India as well. See this full video on the #DeltaVariant situation in UK. Part 1 of 3. Other videos in thread 🧵 below.
12) Singapore 🇸🇬 Ministry of Health is also warning about #DeltaVariant and kids as well. We need to learn from other countries so that we don’t repeat it ourselves.
13) More data about #DeltaVariant transmission via schools from recent report on transmission incidents (99% #DeltaVariant in 🇬🇧) in “Educational Settings”. Yes elderly more protected than children, true, but we see a rise in the parent generation of school kids too.
14) this thread 🧵 explains just how fast #DeltaVariant spreads in the real world. Fleeting exposure of mere seconds is all it needs according to very detailed contact tracing in Australia 🇦🇺… and fleeting exposure infection happened twice by one man alone. ⬇️
15) they have the actual security camera footage of this encounter and infection event. They never actually touched - it was the 2nd fleeting encounter infection from same outbreak. #DeltaVariant is damn infectious.
16) please sign this petition to CDC for urgent #DeltaVariant action. It is by @endCOVID19 & @CovidActionGrp and a “coalition of scientists, public health officials, epidemiologists, health care workers, educators, advocates, parents, & concerned citizens: change.org/p/centers-for-…
17) Reminder - #LongCovid in kids is real. 1 in 12 kids will develop #LongCovidKids according to UK 🇬🇧 data. Don’t trivialize pediatric cases.
Incredibly frustrating that the @USDA again failed to include basic information about H5N1 genetic sequences from cows. All data had dates and locations scrubbed out—only saying “USA” & “2024”, which is useless for scientists to analyze for mutation rates. statnews.com/2024/05/02/bir…
2) The fact that basic information — called metadata — isn’t being shared about the samples “hinders our efforts a lot,” said Gytis Dudas, a senior researcher in genomic epidemiology and metagenomics. Dudas is working with a group of U.S. and international researchers to try to make sense of what the genetic sequences say about the H5N1 outbreak in cows.
3) A number of scientists have openly questioned whether the USDA is deliberately withholding these data, or even removing more specific information. 🔥
⚠️CDC WARNING FOR ALL VETERINARIANS, POULTRY, DAIRY & CATTLE FARMWORKERS, SLAUGHTERHOUSE WORKERS—New CDC guidelines now released to use PPE for high risk bird flu exposure occupations (all recommended):
📌N95 respirators
📌Goggles 🥽 or face shield 🛡️
📌Coveralls or fluid-resistant aprons
📌Head covering
📌Rubber boots with sealed seams
📌Gloves
Furthermore:
📍Designated areas for changing PPEs
📍Do not eat, drink, chew gum, chew tobacco, smoke, vape, or use the bathroom while wearing above PPE
📍Shower after work shift
📍(see full list for more details).
Glad the @CDCgov is taking this seriously. You should too. And please don’t drink raw milk 🥛! #AvianFlu #BirdFlu #H5N1 cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/h…
Don’t do raw milk 🥛 please, for the love of god. I know there are many raw milk enthusiasts out there. But just take a pause until this is over? Don’t try to be a macho man about this.
Seriously. Raw milk drinkers… don’t do it. We scientists are pretty damn sure there will be some degree of active virus inside raw milk. Cats have been infected on farms—via likely raw milk. And all 6 cats with bird flu have died of rapid neurological declines, says CDC.
⚠️Bad signal—CDC confirming—“cats having neurologic symptoms, rapid decline, and death” from H5N1 #birdflu. 3 more cases in cats 🐈 on dairy farms… now 6 total. ➡️The prior 3 bird flu positive cats? All dead now. Likely more. This is mammalian adaptation. bnonews.com/index.php/2024…
2) I suspect cats are drinking milk from the dairy cows on the dairy farms. This is why we shouldn’t drink raw milk 🥛 currently. Even pasteurized milk, some scientists are unsure of because of lack of safety data. See thread 🧵 below.
3) Not just cats — certain dog breeds (like beagles are highly susceptible to H5N1 avian flu too. And such dogs can facilitate their adaptation towards humans eventually (since more dogs are around people than dairy cows).
📍Let this sink in—a world leading virologist @RickABright who has studied H5N1 bird flu says he is pausing all his milk consumption until he sees proof from both FDA & USDA that pasteurized milk is safe to drink. Pausing milk because of his concern over lack of transparent data.
Why are scientists pausing milk intake? Because there still isn’t enough data on safety of pasteurized milk. There has been data on other viruses in the past that survive pasteurization. See detailed thread 🧵 below.
Testing conducted by the FDA on pasteurized commercially purchased milk has found genetic evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus. ➡️But the testing, done by PCR cannot distinguish between live virus or fragments of viruses that could have been killed by the pasteurization process.
The FDA said it has been trying to see if it could grow virus from milk found to contain evidence of H5N1, which is the gold standard test to see if there is viable virus in a product. 📌The FDA *does NOT explicitly say FDA laboratories were unable to find live virus in the milk samples, but nevertheless it does state that its belief that commercial, pasteurized milk is safe to consume has not been altered by these findings.
(Sound familiar? Just like blanket assuming a virus “isn’t airborne”, “cannot transmit without symptoms”, “no human to human transmission” errors during COVID). That said, I will am hopeful that no live virus will be found in confirmation. But let’s be precautious. statnews.com/2024/04/23/h5n…
2) PPE and safety googles or face shield recommended for dairy farmers and anyone handling raw milk 🥛. Also they warn about poor fitting respirators for children (who may work near dairy— like I used to help on a dairy farm as a kid in rural Pa).
3) people working with cattle 🐄 should also “avoid eating drinking smoking chewing gum in contaminated areas or touching eyes.” And people exposed should wear PPE should be monitored for symptoms for 10 days.