Amerikas Vogelgrippe-Glück ist offiziell erschöpft

Yesterday, America had one of its worst days of bird flu to date. For starters, the CDC confirmed the country’s first severe case of human bird-flu infection.

The patient, a Louisiana resident who is over the age of 65 and has underlying medical conditions, is in the hospital with severe respiratory illness and is in critical condition. This is the first time transmission has been traced back to exposure to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks.

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency after weeks of rising infections among dairy herds & people. In LA, public-health officials confirmed two cats died after consuming raw milk that had been recalled due to a risk of bird-flu contamination.

Since March, the virus has spread among livestock & to the humans who handle them. The CDC maintains that the public-health risk is low because no evidence has shown that the virus can spread among people, and illness in humans has mostly been mild. But severe illness has always been a possibility.

That an infected teenager in British Columbia was hospitalized with respiratory distress last month only emphasized not every human case would be mild. Now here we are, with a severe case in the U.S. Although worrying, the new case doesn’t change much about predicted trajectory of bird flu.

Abridged (shortened) article thread ⬇️ 6 min

[https://bsky.app/profile/johnhatchard.bsky.social/post/3ldpr6nqkns2m](https://bsky.app/profile/johnhatchard.bsky.social/post/3ldpr6nqkns2m)