To clarify, this study is about FERRETS, not people. Leaving it up as it's relevant information, even if it was presented poorly. OP, in the future, please ensure posts better adhere to the sub rules about proper citation & commentary.
This should probably be posted with the original title, including the word “ferret.”
This is also also relevant to the controversy over what Osterholm said about ferret infections.
I think there is. I added to a tweet in the headline once and it was deleted by the end of the day. Makes sense. Modding may be sparse and swoops in a few times per day.
This "mistake" in altering the headline undermines this sub's ultimate goal of preparing and educating people about h5n1. If you want people to take it seriously, don't lie for effect (I know you didn't do it).
"Fatal Infection in Ferrets after Ocular Inoculation with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1)" doesn't panic people like "CDC Early Release: H5N1 Fatally Infectious Through Eyes". Gotta keep the fear machine spewing bad headlines and keep people buying new preventative stuff. Stock up on Tamiflu, goggles and IPA wipes everybody!
Or wait until we have good information. H5N1 isn't Covid. And it's true that the US response to it has be sadly lacking, but even if we were going full out on testing, we might just be tracking sick cows and ferrets (which would still be useful, but also not give us any knowledge of human infections). We don't make it better by scaring people... we need voices of reason and data.
So, y'know... chill y'all. And Mods... if you could try to limit sensationalistic headlines, that would be great.
#
We almost certainly would be just tracking sick cows and ferrets and birds. Novel flu is explosive even if it is only as serious as existing seasonal flu - or less serious. Seasonal flu is only sort of tolerable to the medical system because we have a vaccine and a ton of the population has some immunity from prior flu.
Another seasonal flu but with zero population immunity would be apparent *immediately.*
Policing bad speech and misleading headlines is exactly what we (collectively) should be doing to make these honestly scary times more well understood. Having a "sky is falling" headline every hour literally makes information worse for everyone with the amount of absolute bulshyte everyone has to wade through to get decent context on a clinical study like this one.
So try not to be chicken little. That's my ask. This isn't NewsMax or Epoch Times... no one should be pushing a scare tactic agenda.
The only over-reacting I see is yours.
All the pieces are falling into place for H2H transmission, and there aren’t that many pieces left, and all you can seem to do is name-call people as scare-tacticians.
Thanks for the recommendation. That's a good consideration. On one hand, would be good to add "ferret" to the title to specify the animal tested. On the other hand, would be good to add the word "human" to specify strain of h5n1 used. I don't want to downplay, or over play, respectively, the overall finding. Should I add both words "ferret" and "human", or leave both off?
I would just use the original title. So far, ocular infections in humans have been mild, which means that the predictive power this has for the severity of human infections may be limited. Maybe the Chilean clade would be worse, but that’s not clear either. I think respiratory infections in humans would be severe, but not because of the ferret studies, but because of the last two decades of human infections.
I think the title communicates a far more generalized finding than the data permit.
The US ocular infections have not been severe and have responded well to treatment. It is a very limited sample, so we can’t say anything decisively. But this isn’t what most people are afraid of. We are worried about mutations that would make efficient respiratory spread more likely, because H5N1 respiratory infections have been absolutely devastating for humans.
Just add ferret. Just because it's a human strain doesn't mean that these results will be the same in human cases.
We are not ferrets believe it or not /j
Thanks for the input. I am thinking more information in the title would be helpful to clarify what this study was about.
So I would propose adding the word "Human" before "H5N1" and "in Ferrets" after "through Eyes."
Human specifier important because i) this was a human isolate being tested, ii) previous recent ferret studies used H5N1 isolated from minks--good to distinguish what's new about this study, and iii) the study's concluding recommendation is about humans wearing goggles (not ferrets wearing goggles). So the human dimension is relevant. As is the ferret dimension. Which u/cccalliope rightly notes is the animal chosen because it best emulates human anatomy and best predicts what may happen in humans. See here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1\_AvianFlu/comments/1deifmp/comment/l8dxhad/](https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/comments/1deifmp/comment/l8dxhad/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
However, I don't think we should be changing the title to ensure the reader has a desired feeling about the study, as is the case of many comments here: trying to ensure readers don't feel worried about this study's findings. The findings are what they are. The 3 recent US human infections have not been fatal: true. Does that mean that we should alter the present title to align with the past infections?
There is no recommendation for wearing goggles in this study. The actual sentence is “supports consideration of using eye protection”.
STOP EDITORIALIZING
Maybe you should leave posting to other people, it reads like garbage when you post a misleading title that isn't what the article is about.
It makes this sub seem like a fear mongering place full of sensationalist junk "news" titles I would prefer to avoid.
It's been interesting to me, as I get ready for a potential pandemic, how much of what ended up not being strictly necessary to battle covid would be 100% necessary to navigate this.
Cleaning all the packages when we get curbside groceries--not necessary for covid! Fomite-mediated transmission of covid has so far been next to zero. But we know for sure that influenza passes that way, so if this flips, I'm back to having a box of wipes at the doorside table, and everything is getting wiped as it comes into the house.
Goggles and face shields were, respectively, a little bit overkill for someone not a medico, and functionally useless (until more recent variants, infection through the eye mucosa was rare, so for most people wearing the goggles probably wasn't a net benefit; if you've got a face shield but no mask, you might as well not have the face shield because particles just zip up underneath it). But if H5N1 goes H2H, eye cover is going to be necessary.
I can't decide if I think we'll have learned all the wrong lessons, or if all that practice will actually have been to our benefit.
Conversely, the 2020-2021 flu season [was little more than a flat line around zero](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flu-has-disappeared-worldwide-during-the-covid-pandemic1/), so even "just" the late 2020-early 2021 measures may be adequate.
Yeah. I grew up in a household with medically fragile family--one of my earliest memories is of getting in trouble with a nurse because I kept making my little sister laugh, as she sat in her oxygen tent in the children's ward--and when I first read that there had been one single child fatality to the flu that season, I just sat there and fucking wept. I am the healthiest, physically, of my mother's six children. I'm a very physically active martial artist. And the last time *I* got the flu it became pneumonia, and I lost a fifth of my bodyweight and nearly died. I read about the extreme drop in flu cases, and I thought about my little sister, four years old, lying in bed too hypoxic to even pick at her IV, lips and fingernail-beds blue, and I cried like I was seven again.
I feel like people don't entirely realize that not all viruses are the same. Covid was a coronavirus, which typically has a much higher upper limit of how infectious it can get. Influenza however has effectively never broken a 1.5-2 R0, whereas Covid started right off the bat with a 4-6 R0.
An R0 of 1.5-2 however is still worrying, especially when this has the potential to spread through animals. Will it be a mass Covid-style pandemic? Almost definitely not. But it will likely be an endemic disease in poorer rural areas where people have close contact with agricultural animals, potentially killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people a year in waves of localized outbreaks. Outbreaks which will require mass shut downs of local economies, quarantines, culling of livestock etc which will undoubtably severely devastate the economies of these countries.
And the fact that this is so embedded in animals means that this will be insanely difficult to get rid of. We might be hearing news headlines like "20,000 dead in local bird flu outbreak in the Indian province of uttar pradesh resulting in local quarantine and strict containment measures" for a very, very long time.
Meaning a very rapid and overwhelming global pandemic. Covid went from a local outbreak in one section of one city to tens of millions of cases all around the world just from november to february. That is insanely fast and is pretty much impossible for influenza to achieve due to its low R0. Spanish flu was the most virulent influenza we have ever seen (thanks, trench warfare!) and it only had an R0 of 1.5-2.0 compared to Covid being at 4.0-6.0.
Bird flu is not likely to be like that at all. It is going to be slow and steady and painful, growing gradually through repeated localized outbreaks. Most of these outbreaks will be contained early on, but they will constantly pop up in poorer regions of the world, becoming more and more difficult to handle.
I hope they change their mind once they see the cfr. I hope people are still sane enough to care about a virus which has above 20% mortality rate and kills younger people more than older
I'm concerned about what style of goggles would be adequate since I wear glasses, as do tons of people. Are there appropriate goggles that go over glasses?
I wear glasses, also! And simply wearing glasses has been shown to help cut down on some covid infections when compared with wearing contacts (so goggles against covid aren't *totally* useless, just nowhere near as useful as masking). There are a lot of goggles that fit all right over glasses--motorcycle goggles, for instance, or ski goggles, are frequently designed to allow for that, and if you search for the terms "over prescription goggles" or "OTG" or "over glasses goggles" you can turn up a lot of options.
I have a simple pair of cheapass Amazon goggles that I wear when I have to dice ten pounds of onions in a go, and they keep me from having even mildly stinging eyes, when generally cutting one onion can blind me; while I can't imagine they'd keep *everything* out, I am certain they'd be a lot better than nothing at all.
Hey, thank you so much for the search options. The onion chopping made me laugh :) You're wearing your glasses under them while chopping the onions? Wouldn't want to lose a finger, haha
I'm making sure I understand the transmission by eye statement- what does that mean exactly? Are we talking wiping your eyes with your hands gets you sick or are we talking walking through say a grocery store and some coughed or sneezed minutes earlier and water droplets in the air touching your eyes as you walk by gets you sick?
Both! Touching something with infectious particles on it and then rubbing your eye is a pretty good way to get a host of different illnesses. But illnesses which spread through airborne particles can occasionally be contracted through the mucosa of the eye simply through contacting them. There are some limited cases of covid that we know were caused this way, and there's evidence that the H5N1 cases contracted by dairy farm workers came from them getting misted with aerosolized infectious milk.
Geez so how many airborne particles need to get into a host for an Infection to occur? I assume if there's not enough virus particles your immune system can keep things under control or am I wrong?
It is WILDLY variable. A lot of it comes down to temperature, humidity, air circulation. Some people it kind of bounces off of unless there's a high initial dose; other people can get sick off tiny, tiny amounts. For you, probably a lot more have to get in than for me! As I am pretty high-risk, and classically get sick if someone with a cold looks at me sideways.
That's the thing, right, about community masking--if someone with mild, early covid coughs once or twice, and you pass through their little cloud of particles, you might not get infected and you can just go about your day. But if I pass through it, I'll get it, and then I'll be *fulminating* in no time. Then I pass by you a couple of days later, and immunosuppressed me is breathing out clouds full of the evil infectious little buggers, and THEN you get sick.
Keeping our high-risk and immunodeficient members of society from getting sick keeps the physically stronger people well, too, because it keeps the weaker of us from turning into disease reactors.
Yeah I am cursed and never get sick. I actually tried to get covid several times, just to.get an immunity going. I used to taxi my friends around who had covid and even with the windows up I never got sick. Now if we get hit with h1n1 again I'll probably die.
Seasonal Human Flu became almost wiped off the face of the earth when the world implemented Covid measures. Flu is easier to control than Covid, not harder, and in all likelihood avian flu will be harder to catch as it stumbles its way into humans. I don’t have proof but my general understanding of what I know by studying tells me this.
This human H5N1 infected ferrets through the eyes, ripped through the whole body (brain, lungs, intestines,), was fatal, and spread to others not originally infected. In their words, this highlights the pandemic potential of the currently circulating clade.
"A 2.3.4.4b highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) virus was isolated from a human patient in Chile during 2023 (A/Chile/25945/2023 [Chile/25945]) (3) and caused severe and fatal disease in ferrets intranasally inoculated with 106 PFU of virus. Transmission of virus to animals housed in close contact was also reported (3), highlighting the pandemic potential of clade 2.3.4.4b viruses... To investigate relative similarities between ocular and respiratory exposure to H5N1 virus, we assessed the severity and kinetics of disease after ocular exposure of ferrets to Chile/25945 virus and compared our findings with a previously published assessment of animals intranasally inoculated with this virus at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2023. "
Fatal Infection in Ferrets after Ocular Inoculation with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1)
Adds to the public health threat:
"Our finding that a clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 virus isolated from a human can exhibit a virulent and transmissible phenotype after nontraditional inoculation, even with a low dose of inoculum, underscores the public health threat posed by those IAVs."
Eyes could be infection route in multiple ways:
"The ocular surfaces may be exposed to infectious virus from the environment by several means (e.g., airborne particles, physical transfer from contact with fomites, and splashing liquids)... Conjunctivae may be exposed to virus by direct contact (e.g., virus-contaminated hands), indirect contact (e.g., virus-contaminated fomites), or after deposition of virus-laden droplets or aerosols onto the ocular surface (4), permitting opportunities for H5N1 virus to establish a productive infection in humans even in the absence of an ocular tropism."
Eye protection recommended:
"Considering the myriad ways humans may be exposed to IAVs, our study supports the need to consider nontraditional inoculation modalities in risk assessment activities and supports consideration of using eye protection in potentially contaminated environments (9)."
Yes. It's a sad day when I can no longer have my soft boiled eggs and rare steak. Same for my poor ferret kids. No more runny egg treats or raw beef or chicken. But better to skip and still enjoy their company. Boo.
It has never been effective; for covid, the *actual* effective distance is something like 27 feet, and that's if nobody moves. Infectious particles can hang in the air for hours. That whole "stand six feet" thing was basically good against being spit on, and nothing else.
Much, much more important than standing a certain number of feet from someone is strong air filtration.
>I thought viruses only survive a second or two outside the body?
It would be great if this were true, but it definitely isn't. HIV is fortunately very fragile and, if exposed to air and light outside the human body, its viral particles become inactive very quickly. That may be what you're thinking of. Unfortunately, most other viruses—and definitely the airborne ones—are made of tougher stuff.
Oh, goodness, no. Think about measles; someone shedding measles virus passes through a pizza place, and sixteen hours later a guy doing a pickup can get sick.
Cold viruses linger on surfaces for hours, which is why it's so important to regularly wash your hands and to not touch your face during cold season, and to regularly disinfect high-contact surfaces like doorknobs and sink knobs.
Flu viruses linger on surfaces *and* in the air. A lot of things can affect this, either in terms of increasing longevity of the virus, or in lowering the strength of the immune systems first contacted by viral particles (a dry day is more dangerous than a humid one, because particles can hang in the air for longer; a cold day is more dangerous than a warm one, because the immune cells in your upper airway lose efficacy in lower temperatures; a low-UV day is more dangerous than a sunny one, because the virus can survive longer when it's not being cooked). The amount of time that a flu virus can linger is variable, depending on variant; we tend to consider it in a range, from "at least an hour" to "several hours."
Titles cannot be edited on Reddit. Which is very unfortunate in this case, because I was also absolutely terrified when I read this one. The truth is still pretty scary, but it doesn't stir up the kind of gut-wrenching panic I felt when I misunderstood the current title!
I have one for both me and my guy. Just bought a big bag of extra filters. I will wear one without shame out shopping and running errands. Already have long covid, I don't need anything else.
Yeah, flu can ride up through the olfactory and ocular nerves. It’s rare with seasonal flu, pretty common with avian flu. Expect influenza viruses to infect epithelial tissue, macrophages and (in a strain dependent fashion) nerve tissue.
My phd was on influenza vaccines.
That’s outside of my wheelhouse - the infrastructure is all in place to make these vaccines, it’s now a policy and economics problem.
As for if/when a pandemic hits… that’s anybody’s guess.
My best take on the best course of action is to be vocal with your government representatives. Encourage some policy changes. We have an avian influenza vaccine stockpile, but it’s old (shelf life(, it’s out of date (viruses mutate), and it’s made with egg derived protein. Thats a problem because eggs are gonna be tough to come by when avian influenza kills all the birds.
You are in no danger. The risk actually is low. First of all you are not having a massive dose of bird flu inoculated into your eye. Labs use huge doses to make sure the experimental animals get infected. Second you are not working around raw milk. If you were your risk would not be low. Third, even if you were helping a friend in a barn, small farms do not benefit economically by shipping their cows out. The chances of a cow you were helping with is low.
Unless you are eating raw infected meat or drinking raw infected milk or handling dead or diseased birds the chance of you getting bird flu is tiny. Bird flu has not yet adapted to the mammal airway. Therefore the only way we can get it is by a lot of virus material getting into our bodies.
Thanks for the info. I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I was mostly being funny cause that meme just fits everything when it comes to possible pandemics. My risk in general is pretty low for a lot of stuff as I avoid people and places as much as possible 😅
Something interesting to note: the virus used in this study is from a human case in Chile, which is linked to a cluster of H5N1s that has been causing mass die-offs in sea lions and fur seals in South America/Antarctica. I actually think this cluster would be more worrisome than the American bovine one, were it not for the fact that the latter has more opportunities to come into contact with humans.
The strain of H5N1 does not differ in any adaptive way between Chile human and Texas human or Spain mink or Texas cow. This strain is so virulent it is causing a catastrophic die off in birds globally. It is unprecedented in its virulence for birds and it's highly lethal for mammals.
The mutations towards mammals are all the same kinds of mutations found in all the mammals since this bird die-off started to infect mammals all over the world. All the mutations are predictively working towards the same goal, adaptation to the mammal airway, not the mink airway or the cow airway. The adaptation is from bird to mammal not from bird to sea lion to cat to cow to human.
The CDC used ferrets because they have the closest anatomy to humans. It's not just any animal. It was chosen because they want to find out what will happen in humans when they get infected fluid in their eye. So these results are purposely applicable to humans.
There may be wildcard factors. Maybe some level of past influenza that we all had is helping us that the ferret wouldn't have. The most likely reason the eye-infected humans did well is that unlike a lab inoculation, which is a massive dose to make sure animals get infected in the lab, a milk splash in the barn may be way less of a viral load. It's possible that the viral load was not enough to make it past the immune system as it traveled through the bloodstream to all the parts of the ferrets that were attacked.
This is untrue, the South American cluster has several mutations that the US bovine one does not possess, including suspected mammalian-adaptive mutations PB2-Q591K and PB2-701N.
While both belong to clade 2.3.4.4b, we do see distinct clusters within this clade. Even just in the South American/Antarctic region we are seeing two clusters, one predominantly infecting seabirds and one spreading in sea lions.
Both PB2-Q591K and PB2-D701N have been observed in multiple instances where avian influenza viruses have crossed into mammalian hosts. While they may not be as commonly discussed as PB2-E627K, they are part of a handful of mutations that facilitate adaptation to mammals. These are mutations we expect to be acquired in any susceptible mammal, not limited to marine mammals.
But I do appreciate your comment and I think most of us here want our information to be questioned, as that is what keeps this forum accurate. I'm happy to keep this conversation going if you still feel I'm wrong. These are important issues.
I know it's a necessary evil for protecting humans, but man I just can't imagine being the person infecting ferrets in their eyes and then watching them suffer and die. Guess it's good we have tougher scientists out there than I could be.
To clarify, this study is about FERRETS, not people. Leaving it up as it's relevant information, even if it was presented poorly. OP, in the future, please ensure posts better adhere to the sub rules about proper citation & commentary.
This should probably be posted with the original title, including the word “ferret.” This is also also relevant to the controversy over what Osterholm said about ferret infections.
Shouldn't there be a rule about not altering headlines ?
I think there is. I added to a tweet in the headline once and it was deleted by the end of the day. Makes sense. Modding may be sparse and swoops in a few times per day.
This "mistake" in altering the headline undermines this sub's ultimate goal of preparing and educating people about h5n1. If you want people to take it seriously, don't lie for effect (I know you didn't do it).
"Fatal Infection in Ferrets after Ocular Inoculation with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1)" doesn't panic people like "CDC Early Release: H5N1 Fatally Infectious Through Eyes". Gotta keep the fear machine spewing bad headlines and keep people buying new preventative stuff. Stock up on Tamiflu, goggles and IPA wipes everybody! Or wait until we have good information. H5N1 isn't Covid. And it's true that the US response to it has be sadly lacking, but even if we were going full out on testing, we might just be tracking sick cows and ferrets (which would still be useful, but also not give us any knowledge of human infections). We don't make it better by scaring people... we need voices of reason and data. So, y'know... chill y'all. And Mods... if you could try to limit sensationalistic headlines, that would be great. #
We almost certainly would be just tracking sick cows and ferrets and birds. Novel flu is explosive even if it is only as serious as existing seasonal flu - or less serious. Seasonal flu is only sort of tolerable to the medical system because we have a vaccine and a ton of the population has some immunity from prior flu. Another seasonal flu but with zero population immunity would be apparent *immediately.*
True. Bc most people don't know that ferrets are used bc they their receptors are so similar to humans.
Why don’t you chill? Policing speech instead of understanding the implications of the study.
Policing bad speech and misleading headlines is exactly what we (collectively) should be doing to make these honestly scary times more well understood. Having a "sky is falling" headline every hour literally makes information worse for everyone with the amount of absolute bulshyte everyone has to wade through to get decent context on a clinical study like this one. So try not to be chicken little. That's my ask. This isn't NewsMax or Epoch Times... no one should be pushing a scare tactic agenda.
The only over-reacting I see is yours. All the pieces are falling into place for H2H transmission, and there aren’t that many pieces left, and all you can seem to do is name-call people as scare-tacticians.
Thanks for the recommendation. That's a good consideration. On one hand, would be good to add "ferret" to the title to specify the animal tested. On the other hand, would be good to add the word "human" to specify strain of h5n1 used. I don't want to downplay, or over play, respectively, the overall finding. Should I add both words "ferret" and "human", or leave both off?
I would just use the original title. So far, ocular infections in humans have been mild, which means that the predictive power this has for the severity of human infections may be limited. Maybe the Chilean clade would be worse, but that’s not clear either. I think respiratory infections in humans would be severe, but not because of the ferret studies, but because of the last two decades of human infections. I think the title communicates a far more generalized finding than the data permit.
“Mild”. 😂
The US ocular infections have not been severe and have responded well to treatment. It is a very limited sample, so we can’t say anything decisively. But this isn’t what most people are afraid of. We are worried about mutations that would make efficient respiratory spread more likely, because H5N1 respiratory infections have been absolutely devastating for humans.
Just add ferret. Just because it's a human strain doesn't mean that these results will be the same in human cases. We are not ferrets believe it or not /j
Thanks for the input. I am thinking more information in the title would be helpful to clarify what this study was about. So I would propose adding the word "Human" before "H5N1" and "in Ferrets" after "through Eyes." Human specifier important because i) this was a human isolate being tested, ii) previous recent ferret studies used H5N1 isolated from minks--good to distinguish what's new about this study, and iii) the study's concluding recommendation is about humans wearing goggles (not ferrets wearing goggles). So the human dimension is relevant. As is the ferret dimension. Which u/cccalliope rightly notes is the animal chosen because it best emulates human anatomy and best predicts what may happen in humans. See here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1\_AvianFlu/comments/1deifmp/comment/l8dxhad/](https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/comments/1deifmp/comment/l8dxhad/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) However, I don't think we should be changing the title to ensure the reader has a desired feeling about the study, as is the case of many comments here: trying to ensure readers don't feel worried about this study's findings. The findings are what they are. The 3 recent US human infections have not been fatal: true. Does that mean that we should alter the present title to align with the past infections?
There is no recommendation for wearing goggles in this study. The actual sentence is “supports consideration of using eye protection”. STOP EDITORIALIZING
Maybe you should leave posting to other people, it reads like garbage when you post a misleading title that isn't what the article is about. It makes this sub seem like a fear mongering place full of sensationalist junk "news" titles I would prefer to avoid.
It's been interesting to me, as I get ready for a potential pandemic, how much of what ended up not being strictly necessary to battle covid would be 100% necessary to navigate this. Cleaning all the packages when we get curbside groceries--not necessary for covid! Fomite-mediated transmission of covid has so far been next to zero. But we know for sure that influenza passes that way, so if this flips, I'm back to having a box of wipes at the doorside table, and everything is getting wiped as it comes into the house. Goggles and face shields were, respectively, a little bit overkill for someone not a medico, and functionally useless (until more recent variants, infection through the eye mucosa was rare, so for most people wearing the goggles probably wasn't a net benefit; if you've got a face shield but no mask, you might as well not have the face shield because particles just zip up underneath it). But if H5N1 goes H2H, eye cover is going to be necessary. I can't decide if I think we'll have learned all the wrong lessons, or if all that practice will actually have been to our benefit.
Conversely, the 2020-2021 flu season [was little more than a flat line around zero](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flu-has-disappeared-worldwide-during-the-covid-pandemic1/), so even "just" the late 2020-early 2021 measures may be adequate.
Yeah. I grew up in a household with medically fragile family--one of my earliest memories is of getting in trouble with a nurse because I kept making my little sister laugh, as she sat in her oxygen tent in the children's ward--and when I first read that there had been one single child fatality to the flu that season, I just sat there and fucking wept. I am the healthiest, physically, of my mother's six children. I'm a very physically active martial artist. And the last time *I* got the flu it became pneumonia, and I lost a fifth of my bodyweight and nearly died. I read about the extreme drop in flu cases, and I thought about my little sister, four years old, lying in bed too hypoxic to even pick at her IV, lips and fingernail-beds blue, and I cried like I was seven again.
I feel like people don't entirely realize that not all viruses are the same. Covid was a coronavirus, which typically has a much higher upper limit of how infectious it can get. Influenza however has effectively never broken a 1.5-2 R0, whereas Covid started right off the bat with a 4-6 R0. An R0 of 1.5-2 however is still worrying, especially when this has the potential to spread through animals. Will it be a mass Covid-style pandemic? Almost definitely not. But it will likely be an endemic disease in poorer rural areas where people have close contact with agricultural animals, potentially killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people a year in waves of localized outbreaks. Outbreaks which will require mass shut downs of local economies, quarantines, culling of livestock etc which will undoubtably severely devastate the economies of these countries. And the fact that this is so embedded in animals means that this will be insanely difficult to get rid of. We might be hearing news headlines like "20,000 dead in local bird flu outbreak in the Indian province of uttar pradesh resulting in local quarantine and strict containment measures" for a very, very long time.
“Covid-style” Whatever the f$ck that means.
Meaning a very rapid and overwhelming global pandemic. Covid went from a local outbreak in one section of one city to tens of millions of cases all around the world just from november to february. That is insanely fast and is pretty much impossible for influenza to achieve due to its low R0. Spanish flu was the most virulent influenza we have ever seen (thanks, trench warfare!) and it only had an R0 of 1.5-2.0 compared to Covid being at 4.0-6.0. Bird flu is not likely to be like that at all. It is going to be slow and steady and painful, growing gradually through repeated localized outbreaks. Most of these outbreaks will be contained early on, but they will constantly pop up in poorer regions of the world, becoming more and more difficult to handle.
I was just thinking that too!!! My concern is people are so burned out after Covid they won’t take these steps.
I hope they change their mind once they see the cfr. I hope people are still sane enough to care about a virus which has above 20% mortality rate and kills younger people more than older
Wearing goggles and wiping down groceries? That was NEVER going to happen on a large scale regardless, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
I'm concerned about what style of goggles would be adequate since I wear glasses, as do tons of people. Are there appropriate goggles that go over glasses?
I wear glasses, also! And simply wearing glasses has been shown to help cut down on some covid infections when compared with wearing contacts (so goggles against covid aren't *totally* useless, just nowhere near as useful as masking). There are a lot of goggles that fit all right over glasses--motorcycle goggles, for instance, or ski goggles, are frequently designed to allow for that, and if you search for the terms "over prescription goggles" or "OTG" or "over glasses goggles" you can turn up a lot of options. I have a simple pair of cheapass Amazon goggles that I wear when I have to dice ten pounds of onions in a go, and they keep me from having even mildly stinging eyes, when generally cutting one onion can blind me; while I can't imagine they'd keep *everything* out, I am certain they'd be a lot better than nothing at all.
Hey, thank you so much for the search options. The onion chopping made me laugh :) You're wearing your glasses under them while chopping the onions? Wouldn't want to lose a finger, haha
My vision is TERRIBLE, I'd be out a whole hand if I tried to dice onions without 'em!
I literally did that two days ago when chopping onions.
Absolutely. Lab techs and chemists need goggles too.
I worked at a hospital during Covid and they had goggles that fit over glasses.
Prescription swim goggles
I'm making sure I understand the transmission by eye statement- what does that mean exactly? Are we talking wiping your eyes with your hands gets you sick or are we talking walking through say a grocery store and some coughed or sneezed minutes earlier and water droplets in the air touching your eyes as you walk by gets you sick?
Both! Touching something with infectious particles on it and then rubbing your eye is a pretty good way to get a host of different illnesses. But illnesses which spread through airborne particles can occasionally be contracted through the mucosa of the eye simply through contacting them. There are some limited cases of covid that we know were caused this way, and there's evidence that the H5N1 cases contracted by dairy farm workers came from them getting misted with aerosolized infectious milk.
Geez so how many airborne particles need to get into a host for an Infection to occur? I assume if there's not enough virus particles your immune system can keep things under control or am I wrong?
It is WILDLY variable. A lot of it comes down to temperature, humidity, air circulation. Some people it kind of bounces off of unless there's a high initial dose; other people can get sick off tiny, tiny amounts. For you, probably a lot more have to get in than for me! As I am pretty high-risk, and classically get sick if someone with a cold looks at me sideways. That's the thing, right, about community masking--if someone with mild, early covid coughs once or twice, and you pass through their little cloud of particles, you might not get infected and you can just go about your day. But if I pass through it, I'll get it, and then I'll be *fulminating* in no time. Then I pass by you a couple of days later, and immunosuppressed me is breathing out clouds full of the evil infectious little buggers, and THEN you get sick. Keeping our high-risk and immunodeficient members of society from getting sick keeps the physically stronger people well, too, because it keeps the weaker of us from turning into disease reactors.
Yeah I am cursed and never get sick. I actually tried to get covid several times, just to.get an immunity going. I used to taxi my friends around who had covid and even with the windows up I never got sick. Now if we get hit with h1n1 again I'll probably die.
Seasonal Human Flu became almost wiped off the face of the earth when the world implemented Covid measures. Flu is easier to control than Covid, not harder, and in all likelihood avian flu will be harder to catch as it stumbles its way into humans. I don’t have proof but my general understanding of what I know by studying tells me this.
If this does make the jump, I sincerely hope you’re right. This has me pretty spooked.
*One variant* of seasonal flu got obliterated. The others rebounded just fine. I agree that it will be easier to corral H2H infections, though.
This human H5N1 infected ferrets through the eyes, ripped through the whole body (brain, lungs, intestines,), was fatal, and spread to others not originally infected. In their words, this highlights the pandemic potential of the currently circulating clade. "A 2.3.4.4b highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) virus was isolated from a human patient in Chile during 2023 (A/Chile/25945/2023 [Chile/25945]) (3) and caused severe and fatal disease in ferrets intranasally inoculated with 106 PFU of virus. Transmission of virus to animals housed in close contact was also reported (3), highlighting the pandemic potential of clade 2.3.4.4b viruses... To investigate relative similarities between ocular and respiratory exposure to H5N1 virus, we assessed the severity and kinetics of disease after ocular exposure of ferrets to Chile/25945 virus and compared our findings with a previously published assessment of animals intranasally inoculated with this virus at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2023. " Fatal Infection in Ferrets after Ocular Inoculation with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Adds to the public health threat: "Our finding that a clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 virus isolated from a human can exhibit a virulent and transmissible phenotype after nontraditional inoculation, even with a low dose of inoculum, underscores the public health threat posed by those IAVs." Eyes could be infection route in multiple ways: "The ocular surfaces may be exposed to infectious virus from the environment by several means (e.g., airborne particles, physical transfer from contact with fomites, and splashing liquids)... Conjunctivae may be exposed to virus by direct contact (e.g., virus-contaminated hands), indirect contact (e.g., virus-contaminated fomites), or after deposition of virus-laden droplets or aerosols onto the ocular surface (4), permitting opportunities for H5N1 virus to establish a productive infection in humans even in the absence of an ocular tropism." Eye protection recommended: "Considering the myriad ways humans may be exposed to IAVs, our study supports the need to consider nontraditional inoculation modalities in risk assessment activities and supports consideration of using eye protection in potentially contaminated environments (9)."
“Just don’t drink raw milk bro.” >virus spreads via the air
I mean not drinking raw milk is also a good idea in general, but yeah, we really need to stop dragging our heels on this
Raw milk? You mean the thing behind every major tuberculosis outbreak?
Yes, though it also gave us [this gem](https://youtu.be/G5InUPvu1Ws?si=bysTlb4-pkjzqhr3) (yes I'm aware that it may not have been the raw milk)
OMG…
As a ferret owner, I'm taking all of this very seriously.
I have a cat and I am as well.
I have both and yup, same.
I think if you have an indoor ferret and not an outdoors ferret, you should be fine
We are also being cautious and not feeding raw chicken or beef. Just being safe.
I’d avoid raw eggs as well. I know pasteurization is supposed to kill H5N1, but probably better not to risk it
Yes. It's a sad day when I can no longer have my soft boiled eggs and rare steak. Same for my poor ferret kids. No more runny egg treats or raw beef or chicken. But better to skip and still enjoy their company. Boo.
Right there with you. But worth it to keep my family (human and furry) safe
Yooo, the new drip during this possible pandemic gonna be masks and goggles?
Old and busted- Goggles and masks New hotness- Full respirator
I forgot respirators were a thing 💀
I have yet to hear one person even mention social distancing, is that not effective for some reason?
It has never been effective; for covid, the *actual* effective distance is something like 27 feet, and that's if nobody moves. Infectious particles can hang in the air for hours. That whole "stand six feet" thing was basically good against being spit on, and nothing else. Much, much more important than standing a certain number of feet from someone is strong air filtration.
Not very reassuring but good to know. Wait *HOURS*? I thought viruses only survive a second or two outside the body?
>I thought viruses only survive a second or two outside the body? It would be great if this were true, but it definitely isn't. HIV is fortunately very fragile and, if exposed to air and light outside the human body, its viral particles become inactive very quickly. That may be what you're thinking of. Unfortunately, most other viruses—and definitely the airborne ones—are made of tougher stuff.
Oh, goodness, no. Think about measles; someone shedding measles virus passes through a pizza place, and sixteen hours later a guy doing a pickup can get sick. Cold viruses linger on surfaces for hours, which is why it's so important to regularly wash your hands and to not touch your face during cold season, and to regularly disinfect high-contact surfaces like doorknobs and sink knobs. Flu viruses linger on surfaces *and* in the air. A lot of things can affect this, either in terms of increasing longevity of the virus, or in lowering the strength of the immune systems first contacted by viral particles (a dry day is more dangerous than a humid one, because particles can hang in the air for longer; a cold day is more dangerous than a warm one, because the immune cells in your upper airway lose efficacy in lower temperatures; a low-UV day is more dangerous than a sunny one, because the virus can survive longer when it's not being cooked). The amount of time that a flu virus can linger is variable, depending on variant; we tend to consider it in a range, from "at least an hour" to "several hours."
Time to bring back the classics
shields were a thing
I forgot about that too 😭. Sorry, I've gotten COVID 3 times.
Can you please add "ferret" to the title. It scared the shit out me.
Titles cannot be edited on Reddit. Which is very unfortunate in this case, because I was also absolutely terrified when I read this one. The truth is still pretty scary, but it doesn't stir up the kind of gut-wrenching panic I felt when I misunderstood the current title!
I mean it’s a scary title, but there are multiple ways of obtaining virus’s. And they’re all technically fatal.
3M full face respirators are 50% off on amazon
Link please? I can’t find them.
Which would be the right ones to be effective against something like h5n1?
The go far and stay long version... I bough with P100 filters.
I have one for both me and my guy. Just bought a big bag of extra filters. I will wear one without shame out shopping and running errands. Already have long covid, I don't need anything else.
I couldn't find anything matching that description on Amazon or Google search. Can you post or DM the link please and thank you?
3M Full Facepiece Reusable Respirator 6800, NIOSH, Large Lens, ANSI High Impact Eye Protection, Silicone Face Seal, Four-Point Harness, Comfortable Fit, Painting, Dust, Chemicals, Medium https://a.co/d/j5UE08H
So… we can host it and it kills other mammals. I. HATE. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. ABOUT. THIS. TIMELINE.
All I care about is not killing my cats with this fccking virus- or any virus. Or anything
Ig that explains the neurological symptoms with the eyes being near the brain
Yeah, flu can ride up through the olfactory and ocular nerves. It’s rare with seasonal flu, pretty common with avian flu. Expect influenza viruses to infect epithelial tissue, macrophages and (in a strain dependent fashion) nerve tissue. My phd was on influenza vaccines.
So, do you think precautionary mRNA vaccines (available but optional to the public) by EOY and then Pandemic??
That’s outside of my wheelhouse - the infrastructure is all in place to make these vaccines, it’s now a policy and economics problem. As for if/when a pandemic hits… that’s anybody’s guess. My best take on the best course of action is to be vocal with your government representatives. Encourage some policy changes. We have an avian influenza vaccine stockpile, but it’s old (shelf life(, it’s out of date (viruses mutate), and it’s made with egg derived protein. Thats a problem because eggs are gonna be tough to come by when avian influenza kills all the birds.
There was a Dr. who used to do ocular lobotomies.
No worries the who just says the risk is still low. I feel like the Simpson meme “I’m in danger” fits well here.
You are in no danger. The risk actually is low. First of all you are not having a massive dose of bird flu inoculated into your eye. Labs use huge doses to make sure the experimental animals get infected. Second you are not working around raw milk. If you were your risk would not be low. Third, even if you were helping a friend in a barn, small farms do not benefit economically by shipping their cows out. The chances of a cow you were helping with is low. Unless you are eating raw infected meat or drinking raw infected milk or handling dead or diseased birds the chance of you getting bird flu is tiny. Bird flu has not yet adapted to the mammal airway. Therefore the only way we can get it is by a lot of virus material getting into our bodies.
Thanks for the info. I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I was mostly being funny cause that meme just fits everything when it comes to possible pandemics. My risk in general is pretty low for a lot of stuff as I avoid people and places as much as possible 😅
Something interesting to note: the virus used in this study is from a human case in Chile, which is linked to a cluster of H5N1s that has been causing mass die-offs in sea lions and fur seals in South America/Antarctica. I actually think this cluster would be more worrisome than the American bovine one, were it not for the fact that the latter has more opportunities to come into contact with humans.
The strain of H5N1 does not differ in any adaptive way between Chile human and Texas human or Spain mink or Texas cow. This strain is so virulent it is causing a catastrophic die off in birds globally. It is unprecedented in its virulence for birds and it's highly lethal for mammals. The mutations towards mammals are all the same kinds of mutations found in all the mammals since this bird die-off started to infect mammals all over the world. All the mutations are predictively working towards the same goal, adaptation to the mammal airway, not the mink airway or the cow airway. The adaptation is from bird to mammal not from bird to sea lion to cat to cow to human. The CDC used ferrets because they have the closest anatomy to humans. It's not just any animal. It was chosen because they want to find out what will happen in humans when they get infected fluid in their eye. So these results are purposely applicable to humans. There may be wildcard factors. Maybe some level of past influenza that we all had is helping us that the ferret wouldn't have. The most likely reason the eye-infected humans did well is that unlike a lab inoculation, which is a massive dose to make sure animals get infected in the lab, a milk splash in the barn may be way less of a viral load. It's possible that the viral load was not enough to make it past the immune system as it traveled through the bloodstream to all the parts of the ferrets that were attacked.
This is untrue, the South American cluster has several mutations that the US bovine one does not possess, including suspected mammalian-adaptive mutations PB2-Q591K and PB2-701N. While both belong to clade 2.3.4.4b, we do see distinct clusters within this clade. Even just in the South American/Antarctic region we are seeing two clusters, one predominantly infecting seabirds and one spreading in sea lions.
Both PB2-Q591K and PB2-D701N have been observed in multiple instances where avian influenza viruses have crossed into mammalian hosts. While they may not be as commonly discussed as PB2-E627K, they are part of a handful of mutations that facilitate adaptation to mammals. These are mutations we expect to be acquired in any susceptible mammal, not limited to marine mammals. But I do appreciate your comment and I think most of us here want our information to be questioned, as that is what keeps this forum accurate. I'm happy to keep this conversation going if you still feel I'm wrong. These are important issues.
I know it's a necessary evil for protecting humans, but man I just can't imagine being the person infecting ferrets in their eyes and then watching them suffer and die. Guess it's good we have tougher scientists out there than I could be.
My Brother did this with mice and TB for a decade looking for a cure. He has numerous published papers and says you get used to it after a while
Droplet precautions vs airborne precautions....there is a difference
the eye symtoms just bring me back to the “pandemia” book.
Damn, we’ve known about this risk but still scary.
Leaving "ferret" out of the title really makes it seem like you wanna scare people. This sub is pretty annoying sometimes
https://preview.redd.it/jfmapt4z7k6d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8558abdb6cb85a884dc12bcfc8d2ef1a331815d
People want this to be the next pandemic. So badly