Where's the petri dish thread?

[Shirley]

It’s kinda funny how WaPo’s official slogan is, “Democracy dies in darkness,” then all their content is behind a paywall.

^^^

It should be free and journalists should work for tips.

[KUTradition]

one of the benefits of an iphone and applenews app

[ousdahl]

U.S. is 'flying blind' with bird flu, repeating mistakes of COVID, health experts say

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-heal ... eparedness

[jfish26]

Games, prizes.

[Shirley]

U.S. is 'flying blind' with bird flu, repeating mistakes of COVID, health experts say

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-heal ... eparedness

(I say this without having yet read the article...)

Good luck to "the government" trying to prepare for anything vaguely resembling Covid or any other infectious disease. Every time anything, anything like that hits the news, the comment sections of every venue (mostly related to the stock market) I read goes into total paranoia, let's kill Fauci mode "Biden and the CDC/Democrats are only doing that to try and take control of the county" bullshit. It gets so fucking old, because the next pandemic could happen any minute, and after Trump and his cult politicized public health, it isn't going to be pretty. And good luck trying to get Republicans to appropriate the $ that would be needed to "prepare" properly. ____ing idiots.

[KUTradition]

^^^^^^

[KUTradition]

zero lessons learned

[KUTradition]

CDC issues dengue fever alert in the U.S.

[KUTradition]

U.S. is 'flying blind' with bird flu, repeating mistakes of COVID, health experts say

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-heal ... eparedness

(I say this without having yet read the article...)

Good luck to "the government" trying to prepare for anything vaguely resembling Covid or any other infectious disease. Every time anything, anything like that hits the news, the comment sections of every venue (mostly related to the stock market) I read goes into total paranoia, let's kill Fauci mode "Biden and the CDC/Democrats are only doing that to try and take control of the county" bullshit. It gets so fucking old, because the next pandemic could happen any minute, and after Trump and his cult politicized public health, it isn't going to be pretty. And good luck trying to get Republicans to appropriate the $ that would be needed to "prepare" properly. ____ing idiots.

Scientists wary of bird flu pandemic 'unfolding in slow motion'

https://www.reuters.com/business/health ... 024-07-01/

[KUTradition]

bubonic plague case in pueblo co., colorado

[Overlander]

bubonic plague case in pueblo co., colorado

I blame Boebert

[KUTradition]

For nearly four months, the spread of bird flu in the nation’s dairy cattle has stoked fears that, if left unchecked, the virus could eventually unleash a pandemic.

The recent cluster of human cases connected to poultry farms in Colorado only underscores that the threat remains real.

Genetic sequencing of the virus collected from the sickened poultry workers closely resembles what’s circulating in dairy herds, suggesting that cattle somehow introduced the virus into the poultry flock.

At one massive poultry facility, workers culled the birds under particularly dangerous circumstances.

As health officials describe it, they struggled to properly wear protective equipment over their mouth, nose and eyes as they handled thousands of sick birds in a sweltering barn, with industrial fans blowing feathers and other potentially virus-laden material into the air.

Given these conditions, it’s far from surprising that people would catch the virus themselves, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University.

“It’s gambling with people’s lives,” she says. “There’s no other way to describe it.”

[Shirley]

For nearly four months, the spread of bird flu in the nation’s dairy cattle has stoked fears that, if left unchecked, the virus could eventually unleash a pandemic.

The recent cluster of human cases connected to poultry farms in Colorado only underscores that the threat remains real.

Genetic sequencing of the virus collected from the sickened poultry workers closely resembles what’s circulating in dairy herds, suggesting that cattle somehow introduced the virus into the poultry flock.

At one massive poultry facility, workers culled the birds under particularly dangerous circumstances.

As health officials describe it, they struggled to properly wear protective equipment over their mouth, nose and eyes as they handled thousands of sick birds in a sweltering barn, with industrial fans blowing feathers and other potentially virus-laden material into the air.

Given these conditions, it’s far from surprising that people would catch the virus themselves, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University.

“It’s gambling with people’s lives,” she says. “There’s no other way to describe it.”

I'll take the over that the majority of the people struggling to properly wear protective equipment in that sweltering barn full of sick birds, are the same people Republicans and people like Psych, Mich, and Randi vilify on a daily basis.

If I'm wrong, I'll apologize.

[Shirley]

CDC issues warning amid surge in dengue virus

The CDC issued a health warning about an elevated number of cases of dengue in the U.S. this year.

Suspected cases in the Americas are more than double what they were at this time last year.

In March, Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency after recording 549 cases of dengue virus since the start of 2024. The number rose to more than 1,900 cases as of July 24, according to the CDC.

In June, the CDC issued a health alert about an increased risk of dengue infection in the United States, noting that the global incidence of the mosquito-borne disease in 2024 is the highest on record at this point of the year.

According to the Pan American Health Organization, there have been more than 10.7 million suspected cases of dengue in the Americas this year as of July 25 — a 233% increase over the same time period in 2023 and a 419% increase over the average number of cases in the same time period from the last 5 years.

The CDC reported 2,869 cases in 48 U.S. jurisdictions as of July 24, nearly 2,000 of which were defined as locally acquired — most of them occurring in Puerto Rico.

Florida is the only U.S. state with any recorded local infections this year — 12 in total — but the CDC noted that there have been more travel-related cases in the U.S. than expected this year, totaling 920...

Breakbone fever: Also known as dengue fever, an acute mosquito-borne viral illness of sudden onset that usually follows a benign course with headache, fever, prostration, severe joint and muscle pain, swollen glands (lymphadenopathy) and rash. The presence (the "dengue triad") of fever, rash, and headache (and other pains) is particularly characteristic. Better known as dengue, the disease is endemic throughout the tropics and subtropics in various parts of the world. It goes by other names including dandy fever. Victims of dengue often have contortions due to the intense joint and muscle pain. Hence, the name "breakbone fever." Slaves in the West Indies who contracted dengue were said to have "dandy fever" because of their postures and gait.

[ousdahl]

WHO declares monkey pox a global health emergency

Or is it just mpox?

[jhawks99]

WHO declares monkey pox a global health emergency

Or is it just mpox?

I saw that. I wasn't sure if mpox was monkey pox or something else. A lot of words in the article I read went over my head.

[MICHHAWK]

no need to worry. unless you’re a monkey of course.

[KUTradition]

so, you’re worried then

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

I'm confident I know more people who have Covid today (8/17/24) than I know/knew people who had Covid in all of August of 2021. Why?

[Shirley]

I'm confident I know more people who have Covid today (8/17/24) than I know/knew people who had Covid in all of August of 2021. Why?

...A combination of slightly greater transmissibility, partial escape from immunity, and waning immunity from previous vaccinations and infections set the stage for another summer COVID-19 surge,

explains David Montefiori, PhD, director of the Laboratory for HIV and COVID-19 Vaccine Research and Development in the Department of Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina...SARS-CoV-2 is constantly evolving, but most of the mutations are inconsequential, Montefiori explains.

...“There are many, many subvariants we don’t even hear about,” he says. “We hear about the ones that are most common at a particular time.”

The now-dominant KP.2 and KP.3 variants, which are part of a family of strains collectively referred to as FLiRT variants because of the part of the virus where they have mutated, are subvariants of JN.1, which is a subvariant of omicron.

Omicron appeared in late 2021 and was the last variant to mutate enough to significantly escape immunity from the original strain and vaccines tailored to it. Since then, the variant mutations have had only small impacts on immune evasion.

“There’s very little difference among these variants [JN.1, KP.2, and KP.3], and that’s a good thing,” Montefiori says. “However, all three of [them] have escaped [immunity] up to five- to tenfold, compared to the XBB variant contained in last fall’s booster.”

Scientists are most concerned when there are mutations to the virus’s spike protein, which is what the virus uses to attach to and infect cells. The spike protein is also the part of the virus that the vaccines have been developed to target. The FLiRT variants have several minor mutations to the spike protein — perhaps enough to trick antibodies for a while — but not enough to completely evade immunity, Montefiori explains.

How long are you protected after getting a COVID-19 vaccine or infection?

The antibodies that are triggered from either a vaccination or an infection generally last for three to four months, notes Kawsar Talaat, MD, a vaccinologist and associate professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

The reason COVID-19 cases are increasing this summer is likely because people who haven’t been recently vaccinated or infected have fewer antibodies at the ready to fight off the first sign of the virus and are more likely to experience its symptoms, including fever, chills, sore throat, cough, congestion, body aches, gastrointestinal issues, and fatigue.

In a study examining COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in Nebraska after vaccination with the 2023-2024 vaccines that targeted the XBB.1.5 variant, researchers found that vaccine effectiveness peaked four weeks after vaccination and then gradually waned, particularly as the new JN.1 variant began circulating.

“The data showed very clearly [the vaccine-induced immunity] waning over time, indicating there’s a need to target the circulating variants,” says the study’s lead author, Danyu Lin, PhD, Dennis Gillings Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill.

However, he adds that there were greater uncertainties about the effectiveness against hospitalization and death than against infection due to the relatively small number of hospitalizations and deaths.

...