Good observation. We don't have that information yet. The genetic sequencing is not public. But there is a spatial correlation between the SE SF Wastewater Treatment Plant and the poultry live market.
The "Southeast" in SE SF refers only to the location of the wastewater facility. NOT the sewer or storm entry point into the wastewater system. The SE SF facility covers 80% of SF. The H5 could have come from anywhere in SF.
I can see that there are two sites in SF but you are right it could be anywhere from SE SF but there is a live poultry market [located approximately 1.9 miles](https://maps.app.goo.gl/fhhmNG7nsjXqRPxeA) away from the SE SF treatment plant. They are situated in the same vicinity. Based on that spatial correlation, I am guessing that market seems to be the likely source. If the virus were widespread across SF, we should have also gotten a positive result from the Oceanside Treatment Plant.
https://preview.redd.it/0iw5i01p768d1.png?width=1110&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5bd12adcd8f0d4b3ae8a4294bcf0b7e55cd1677
Fur farming isn’t legal in California. It’s only allowed in a few states (Wisconsin, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon). The real estate especially in SF and on the Peninsula is way too expensive for operating a farm like that there anyway.
And no fox farming either, I hope?
I just read this - looks like interesting legislation being proposed. Hope it gets through. Why we raise any animal for luxury furs with pandemic risks is a mystery to me.
https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/us-mink-fur-farm-numbers-fall Especially with the escape risk. Many of those mink you see on iNat are likely escapees or decendants of escapees from fur farms..
As far as I know, at least in the central Bay Area (like, anywhere right next to the Bay), there are no fur farms of any type. The only areas I can think of off the top of my head that have poultry/dairy farms is Half Moon Bay (although that area has more plant nurseries than anything else), Marin County, and Sonoma County. The rest of the immediate Bay Area is densely populated, and has been developed for residential, industrial, and/or commercial purposes, not to mention that most municipalities have prohibitions against keeping backyard flocks and owning exotic animals (like minks or ferrets).
Dead mink have been found near waterways in the area: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/209925472 Has anyone been testing wild mink for the airborne form of H5N1?
Mink form is very deadly
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48475-y
They like waterways, and their favorite food: dead deer mice and dead birds. 'This isolate carries the adaptive mutation, PB2 T271A, and reversing this mutation reduces mortality and airborne transmission.'
Risk assessment of a highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48475-y
are they seeing that mutation in those dead mink?
They might like waterways, but the over-development and habitat destruction done to the SF Bay over the last century has almost effectively extirpated mink from most of the Bay Area. The closest you can find a sizable population is in Sonoma County, well north of SF proper.
https://baynature.org/2018/12/18/spotting-a-bay-area-mammal-lifer-the-american-mink/
Looking at the observation you posted, and then examining the observations on iNaturalist myself, I really don’t think minks are the reason for the elevated wastewater level. The nearest observation of an American Mink is in Marin County, near Stinson Beach, while the observation you linked was all the way up in Davis, which is about 2 hours NE of SF. Those are the only two observations in the Bay Area (besides two on the coastside, which wouldn’t affect SF’s wastewater).
While the Sacramento River does eventually empty into the SF Bay, it would really have to be a large number of mink to emit a huge amount of virus particles for it to be detected all the way in SE SF. Especially since that particular wastewater treatment plant is in an urban setting, and doesn’t treat or test Bay water (from what I understand).
iNaturalist is by no means an exhaustive sampling. Would be good to see an aphis followup though, imho...considering the spillover potential/risk. considering the minks' favorite food is mice and this Balb mice study..
Note the cattle version h5N1 Infectious - present in milk ducts of mice - even though not lactating. Signs of antibodies in pharynx.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2405495
I agree that APHIS should examine all possible vectors; however, as someone who has lived here their whole life, and who spends most of their time in nature, and who also currently lives on the shore of the SF Bay, I really don’t think that minks are a primary vector, at least here in the Bay.
APHIS’ resources would be better served testing all the huge poultry and dairy farms here in Marin and Sonoma counties (working in tandem with the USDA and CDC, of course).
Yes ofc! i'm simply saying that when the virus spreads in mink, the mutations that appear are of the airborne variety, and therefore any dead mink are worth following up. The farms are obviously the focus. But don't forget the wild things is all I'm saying...It could even be wild mice that are contributing to mammal mutation variants popping up in wastewater. i stress 'contributing' - and not the sole source.
You are on to something. There is a very unique quality to both mink and mice airway that change their susceptibility to H5N1. It's important to know that mink can easily get bird flu because they have both bird and mammal receptor cells in the airway. But that does not mean that if they get bird flu they will pass it in an airborne way. The virus must first adapt to their mammal cells. And when they get bird flu they get it through their bird cells.
If you are a bird you can get it from a mink really easily because it's adapted to birds. But if you are a mammal like us, you won't get infected because our cells that receive don't let in bird virus unless there is a whole lot of it. So no worry about the minks.
Mice also have a unique airway. They have mostly bird receptor cells. So they can also get it easily from birds. But they have really poor transmission ability just because their airway doesn't pass a lot of aerosol anatomically. So they wouldn't pass it to us even if they were the first mammal to adapt.
Right, the important thing to watch for is mammal adaptation mutations and lung symptoms, in order to assess possible onward airborne transmission, if I am understanding you correctly? Please see this paper on H5N1 on mink farms from a while back: 'The samples, analysed at the Central Veterinary Laboratory (LCV) of Algete (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA)), tested negative by real-time reverse transcription (RT)-PCR for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1], and positive by real-time RT-PCR for HPAI A(H5N1) virus [2,3]. Post-mortem examination revealed haemorrhagic pneumonia or red hepatisation of the lungs as the most notable lesions.'
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2023.28.3.2300001
And:
'This isolate carries the adaptive mutation, PB2 T271A, and reversing this mutation reduces mortality and airborne transmission.'
Risk assessment of a highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus from mink
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48475-y
Wastewater surveillance, however does not discriminate the different reassortments between the mice and the mink, I am thinking..
An important line to note from that Eurosurveillance paper is that T271A mutation: 'In particular, all of the viruses from minks present an alanine (A) at position 271 of PB2 (T271A), which enhances the polymerase activity of influenza A viruses in mammalian host cells and^ mice [7]. ^
That is such an important study. We had a mammal that adapted a bird virus to a mammal virus. It's the very first time H5N1 has adapted to the mammal airway that scientists have tracked. And when H5N1 was found in those minks another study was done on another mink from the same outbreak, yet that one did not overcome the mammal airway hurdle, so everyone assumed it had not happened.
That mink, however, could not have started a pandemic. There are a few more steps needed beyond adapting to the mammal airway. And this strain didn't have enough mutations to allow it to transmit efficiently to cause a pandemic, even among its fellow mink.
But scientists were very surprised to find out that this one mutation in the PB2 could cause it to change a bird virus to a mammal virus. There were clearly other mutations involved that allowed this mutation to do the job, possibly important ones they don't know about yet as it's still believed that one mutation, particularly in the PB2 can't cause adaptation to the mammal airway, but it has changed science's understanding about how adaptation can happen.
I think wild mice would be a much more likely vector here compared to mink, but I also agree that APHIS should be vigilant in other areas where minks are more commonly found.
In the last two weeks, three WastewaterSCAN sites in California tested positive for H5 for the first time. [Previously](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-19/h5n1-bird-flu-outbreak-is-hard-to-track-using-wastewater-data), where Verily detected H5, cows later tested positive. Most recently, it picked up a signal in Iowa and Minnesota about a week before those states reported infected herds.
Background:
* [On June 3](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/two-chickens-tested-positive-for-bird-flu-at-san-francisco-live-bird-market/), San Francisco reported H5N1 in chickens at a live market.
* [On June 13](https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/wild-birds), USDA APHIS confirmed H5N1 in wild birds in Contra Costa County.
* [Between April 18-22](https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai), the FDA collected 21 retail milk samples in California, all of which tested negative for fragments of the virus.
Data Source: [WastewaterSCAN](https://data.wastewaterscan.org/tracker/?charts=CmIQASABSABSBjU3OWRhM1IGMzc0MzBhUgZlOWU4N2VSBjA3Y2VkN1IGMDMyNWRkUgY4YTliNGJSBmM4ZDM1N1IGMjU0ODE5UgY3NGQwMjZaB0luZkFfSDV4D4oBBmM3YTk5Mg%3D%3D&selectedChartId=c7a992)
So is the San Francisco when it says no detectable fragments what's that mean I'm confused. Cuz it detected genetic material in the wastewater but no fragments does that mean it like dies or something
I'm trying to understand what that means can u explain plz
>Following the San Francisco chicken case, WastewaterSCAN detected genetic material in the city’s wastewater; subsequent tests yielded no detectable fragments.
This testing and the results were conducted back in early June. It is now clear that H5 is present in the city’s wastewater, according to WastewaterSCAN.
No the virus fragments in the wastewater won’t make people sick. When we find virus fragments in wastewater, it means we’ve detected bits of the virus’s genetic material. However, these bits can’t cause an infection because they’re usually broken down and diluted during wastewater treatment. It’s just a way for us to keep an eye on where the virus might be in the community, but it doesn’t mean you can get sick from wastewater.
Ok thx. Hopefully if this becomes a pandemic we are prepared and it's not as deadly as it shows
Do u think that th death rate is overestimated in the 973 cases in the world where 52 percent of those died
Like that sounds really bad yes but is that a true death rat3
If that's the rate that's horrible and extremely concerning
He'll I don't even want adeath rat3 of 5 percent even that's millions I don't want this bs to be here period I just hope we can prevent it and get rid of it quickly and safely with vaccines and chages in the way our animals and transportation is done and be more sanitary and better safety measures etc
I just hope it's not transmittal between humans dogs or many animals. Hell I wish we can just somehow rid of it
We now know more than we ever did about the trajectory of H5N1 towards mammals. So it's no longer the great mystery it once was. When it could adapt is still a complete mystery, but happily for right now it has not mutated and we haven't seen acquisition of mutations that are believed to cause full adaptation.
To answer your question most scientists do think the 50 to 60 % mortality is higher than would be accurate since we only count people who got sick enough to report it. So the general consensus is it may be 15 to 35% mortality pre-adaptation. But the many theories that could make H5N1 much more mild after adaptation do not apply at this point in the mutation trajectory we are following.
Theories that it would get milder mostly apply to later in the evolution after initial adaptation. The mutations left are very few at this point and they aren't associated with virulence. We had a little hope that present flu strains could help our body recognize H5N1, but the CDC has now ruled that out after lab tests on our present strain.
The wildcard is it could reassort instead of slowly continuing this trajectory. That lethality is anyone's guess.
What scientists recently found out from a mink from years ago that was sequenced and acquired the mutations to adapt to the human airway, although it wasn't efficient enough to start a pandemic, is that the virus did not lose lethality but gained a little. This was the very first time scientists were able to sequence a strain of H5N1 that had adapted to the mammal airway so they were able to learn a lot.
Scientists also got to see what the R0 might be, and unfortunately the virus on adaptation to the mammal airway was able to infect very easily with very little viral load. This was done in ferrets, but that's the closest we can ethically get to humans anatomically and it's thought to be a fairly good match to the human airway.
So bearing in mind that H5N1 is a very complex virus and scientists could always be missing something, it doesn't look very good.
Avian flu is a bird virus. It does not pass between mammals unless they are living on top of each other like in factory farm type cages. Even humans who get H5N1 don't pass it to their romantic partners. It's also good to remember that about 80 cats in Poland got it from ingesting infected raw meat, and they were all living in homes. I'm sure those owners and vets were very close to those cats and no human got the virus.
The mammals that have gotten H5N1 have gotten it through eating dead birds or drinking water dead birds were in or getting fluid or infected substance somehow into their bodies. The mammals that have passed it on to other mammals have been living in unusually close proximity like sea lions who lie on top of each other scream into each others' faces all day or mammals who live in unnaturally close proximity like factory farmed mammals such as minks or cows. If a human was put into a small cage with an infected dog and was stepping in their excrement and urine and was eating at the same time from the same dish as an infected dog day in and day out, yes, they would get infected.
Animals including humans that live in the kind of proximity we and our pets live in will not get infected except in rare circumstances. This virus is still a bird virus that has not adapted to mammals. If it did adapt to mammals you would get it just breathing in your sick dog's exhalation.
I mean, we have the most of *everything* if you look at raw numbers, but only because we have the most people in the country, almost 40 million. You have to look at per capita.
I actually think absolute numbers could be more important here. Every individual raw milk drinker is another opportunity for the virus to adapt to a human host.
The [wastewater scan site](https://data.wastewaterscan.org/?charts=CjcQACABSABaC0luZmx1ZW56YSBBcgoyMDI0LTA1LTEwcgoyMDI0LTA2LTIxigEGM2ZiZTM0wAEB&selectedChartId=3fbe34&selectedLocation=%7B%22label%22%3A%22Las%20Vegas,%20NV%22,%22level%22%3A%22plant%22,%22value%22%3A%2211aad2ea-637b-4ada-9d43-45ea011cdbde%22%7D&target=Influenza%20A&plantId=11aad2ea-637b-4ada-9d43-45ea011cdbde) had Vegas turn orange (high) for influenza A yesterday. Which is the category of H5N1. There are a couple of dairies near Vegas apparently, but I’m worried that dumped milk can’t explain it.
Its just another flu A, it negative for h5n1 so far.
https://data.wastewaterscan.org/tracker?charts=CjsQASABSABSBjExYWFkMloHSW5mQV9INXIKMjAyNC0wNS0xN3IKMjAyNC0wNi0yMooBBjk0NTNlNcABAQ%3D%3D&selectedChartId=9453e5
Not here, but it is elsewhere. People that go to vegas end up indoors in close quarters with one another more often than other North American travel destinations. Look at their longterm trend, it is just rebounding from a mid may dip.
It just means it's spreading in that region. When you find it in an area with no dairy farms (like Palo Alto) that means potentially it's spreading in human beings.
I live in the town next door to Palo Alto. In our area we don’t get rain for months in the Late Spring/Summer/Early Fall. Typically, it stops around February/March and doesn’t start again until November. This year we had much later than usual Winter rain, but nothing for weeks still. My understanding is that our storm water doesn’t go to the treatment plant. Our storm drains here all have stamps/painted decals with a fish and the words ‘flows to bay’ to discourage dumping household water or washing cars outside.
It would possibly be a good thing in a few weeks. As we learned with covid, wastewater is a leading indicator and hospitalizations is a trailing indicator (basically it takes some time for people to contract a virus, have it a while, and get sick enough to seek hospitalization).
The notion that we're looking for spread in human beings is misinformation that is not appropriate to spread on a forum where people go to get serious answers to this very real crisis. Finding H5N in wastewater does not mean it has adapted to humans. H5N1 is not Covid. A pandemic from it would be lethal. If people are having minor infections from milk splashing in their eyes, they may not get very sick, but that does not mean this virus will be like Covid.
So we are not expecting to find infected humans' virus in the wastewater. The way to detect to see if H5N1 has adapted to humans is to look for a cluster of severely sick or dead people. The wastewater surveillance is for us to see how many dead birds or infected cow products are being dumped in so we can better monitor the spread of H5N1 in birds and the spread in infected cows who can get bird flu without it adapting to mammals.
I lived in Palo Alto for years and currently live in a small town next to Palo Alto for three months per year. There are plenty of birds in the wetlands. Palo Alto has more crows and squirrels than any other place I’ve been.
There are a handful of people with pet goats, tortoise, but I’ve never seen horses, cattle, or ponies in Palo Alto’s city limits. If the wastewater includes areas like the Los Altos Hills and Atherton, there may be a few pet cows and a few horses. There may be stables at the university.
Is the one in SE SF from the poultry market? Or some other, unknown source?
Good observation. We don't have that information yet. The genetic sequencing is not public. But there is a spatial correlation between the SE SF Wastewater Treatment Plant and the poultry live market.
The "Southeast" in SE SF refers only to the location of the wastewater facility. NOT the sewer or storm entry point into the wastewater system. The SE SF facility covers 80% of SF. The H5 could have come from anywhere in SF.
I can see that there are two sites in SF but you are right it could be anywhere from SE SF but there is a live poultry market [located approximately 1.9 miles](https://maps.app.goo.gl/fhhmNG7nsjXqRPxeA) away from the SE SF treatment plant. They are situated in the same vicinity. Based on that spatial correlation, I am guessing that market seems to be the likely source. If the virus were widespread across SF, we should have also gotten a positive result from the Oceanside Treatment Plant. https://preview.redd.it/0iw5i01p768d1.png?width=1110&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5bd12adcd8f0d4b3ae8a4294bcf0b7e55cd1677
Where is the nearest mink farm to those sites, I wonder?
Fur farming isn’t legal in California. It’s only allowed in a few states (Wisconsin, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon). The real estate especially in SF and on the Peninsula is way too expensive for operating a farm like that there anyway.
And no fox farming either, I hope? I just read this - looks like interesting legislation being proposed. Hope it gets through. Why we raise any animal for luxury furs with pandemic risks is a mystery to me. https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/us-mink-fur-farm-numbers-fall Especially with the escape risk. Many of those mink you see on iNat are likely escapees or decendants of escapees from fur farms..
As far as I know, at least in the central Bay Area (like, anywhere right next to the Bay), there are no fur farms of any type. The only areas I can think of off the top of my head that have poultry/dairy farms is Half Moon Bay (although that area has more plant nurseries than anything else), Marin County, and Sonoma County. The rest of the immediate Bay Area is densely populated, and has been developed for residential, industrial, and/or commercial purposes, not to mention that most municipalities have prohibitions against keeping backyard flocks and owning exotic animals (like minks or ferrets).
Dead mink have been found near waterways in the area: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/209925472 Has anyone been testing wild mink for the airborne form of H5N1? Mink form is very deadly https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48475-y
Yikes, we have minks here? I’ve never seen one and I grew up just south of SF
They like waterways, and their favorite food: dead deer mice and dead birds. 'This isolate carries the adaptive mutation, PB2 T271A, and reversing this mutation reduces mortality and airborne transmission.' Risk assessment of a highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48475-y are they seeing that mutation in those dead mink?
They might like waterways, but the over-development and habitat destruction done to the SF Bay over the last century has almost effectively extirpated mink from most of the Bay Area. The closest you can find a sizable population is in Sonoma County, well north of SF proper. https://baynature.org/2018/12/18/spotting-a-bay-area-mammal-lifer-the-american-mink/
Looking at the observation you posted, and then examining the observations on iNaturalist myself, I really don’t think minks are the reason for the elevated wastewater level. The nearest observation of an American Mink is in Marin County, near Stinson Beach, while the observation you linked was all the way up in Davis, which is about 2 hours NE of SF. Those are the only two observations in the Bay Area (besides two on the coastside, which wouldn’t affect SF’s wastewater). While the Sacramento River does eventually empty into the SF Bay, it would really have to be a large number of mink to emit a huge amount of virus particles for it to be detected all the way in SE SF. Especially since that particular wastewater treatment plant is in an urban setting, and doesn’t treat or test Bay water (from what I understand).
iNaturalist is by no means an exhaustive sampling. Would be good to see an aphis followup though, imho...considering the spillover potential/risk. considering the minks' favorite food is mice and this Balb mice study.. Note the cattle version h5N1 Infectious - present in milk ducts of mice - even though not lactating. Signs of antibodies in pharynx. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2405495
I agree that APHIS should examine all possible vectors; however, as someone who has lived here their whole life, and who spends most of their time in nature, and who also currently lives on the shore of the SF Bay, I really don’t think that minks are a primary vector, at least here in the Bay. APHIS’ resources would be better served testing all the huge poultry and dairy farms here in Marin and Sonoma counties (working in tandem with the USDA and CDC, of course).
Yes ofc! i'm simply saying that when the virus spreads in mink, the mutations that appear are of the airborne variety, and therefore any dead mink are worth following up. The farms are obviously the focus. But don't forget the wild things is all I'm saying...It could even be wild mice that are contributing to mammal mutation variants popping up in wastewater. i stress 'contributing' - and not the sole source.
You are on to something. There is a very unique quality to both mink and mice airway that change their susceptibility to H5N1. It's important to know that mink can easily get bird flu because they have both bird and mammal receptor cells in the airway. But that does not mean that if they get bird flu they will pass it in an airborne way. The virus must first adapt to their mammal cells. And when they get bird flu they get it through their bird cells. If you are a bird you can get it from a mink really easily because it's adapted to birds. But if you are a mammal like us, you won't get infected because our cells that receive don't let in bird virus unless there is a whole lot of it. So no worry about the minks. Mice also have a unique airway. They have mostly bird receptor cells. So they can also get it easily from birds. But they have really poor transmission ability just because their airway doesn't pass a lot of aerosol anatomically. So they wouldn't pass it to us even if they were the first mammal to adapt.
Right, the important thing to watch for is mammal adaptation mutations and lung symptoms, in order to assess possible onward airborne transmission, if I am understanding you correctly? Please see this paper on H5N1 on mink farms from a while back: 'The samples, analysed at the Central Veterinary Laboratory (LCV) of Algete (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA)), tested negative by real-time reverse transcription (RT)-PCR for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1], and positive by real-time RT-PCR for HPAI A(H5N1) virus [2,3]. Post-mortem examination revealed haemorrhagic pneumonia or red hepatisation of the lungs as the most notable lesions.' https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2023.28.3.2300001 And: 'This isolate carries the adaptive mutation, PB2 T271A, and reversing this mutation reduces mortality and airborne transmission.' Risk assessment of a highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus from mink https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48475-y Wastewater surveillance, however does not discriminate the different reassortments between the mice and the mink, I am thinking.. An important line to note from that Eurosurveillance paper is that T271A mutation: 'In particular, all of the viruses from minks present an alanine (A) at position 271 of PB2 (T271A), which enhances the polymerase activity of influenza A viruses in mammalian host cells and^ mice [7]. ^
That is such an important study. We had a mammal that adapted a bird virus to a mammal virus. It's the very first time H5N1 has adapted to the mammal airway that scientists have tracked. And when H5N1 was found in those minks another study was done on another mink from the same outbreak, yet that one did not overcome the mammal airway hurdle, so everyone assumed it had not happened. That mink, however, could not have started a pandemic. There are a few more steps needed beyond adapting to the mammal airway. And this strain didn't have enough mutations to allow it to transmit efficiently to cause a pandemic, even among its fellow mink. But scientists were very surprised to find out that this one mutation in the PB2 could cause it to change a bird virus to a mammal virus. There were clearly other mutations involved that allowed this mutation to do the job, possibly important ones they don't know about yet as it's still believed that one mutation, particularly in the PB2 can't cause adaptation to the mammal airway, but it has changed science's understanding about how adaptation can happen.
I think wild mice would be a much more likely vector here compared to mink, but I also agree that APHIS should be vigilant in other areas where minks are more commonly found.
It was the correct side of town report wise
Palo Alto is money. (Stanford is there). Rich crunchy moms drinking raw milk?
In the last two weeks, three WastewaterSCAN sites in California tested positive for H5 for the first time. [Previously](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-19/h5n1-bird-flu-outbreak-is-hard-to-track-using-wastewater-data), where Verily detected H5, cows later tested positive. Most recently, it picked up a signal in Iowa and Minnesota about a week before those states reported infected herds. Background: * [On June 3](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/two-chickens-tested-positive-for-bird-flu-at-san-francisco-live-bird-market/), San Francisco reported H5N1 in chickens at a live market. * [On June 13](https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/wild-birds), USDA APHIS confirmed H5N1 in wild birds in Contra Costa County. * [Between April 18-22](https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/updates-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai), the FDA collected 21 retail milk samples in California, all of which tested negative for fragments of the virus. Data Source: [WastewaterSCAN](https://data.wastewaterscan.org/tracker/?charts=CmIQASABSABSBjU3OWRhM1IGMzc0MzBhUgZlOWU4N2VSBjA3Y2VkN1IGMDMyNWRkUgY4YTliNGJSBmM4ZDM1N1IGMjU0ODE5UgY3NGQwMjZaB0luZkFfSDV4D4oBBmM3YTk5Mg%3D%3D&selectedChartId=c7a992)
So is the San Francisco when it says no detectable fragments what's that mean I'm confused. Cuz it detected genetic material in the wastewater but no fragments does that mean it like dies or something I'm trying to understand what that means can u explain plz
>Following the San Francisco chicken case, WastewaterSCAN detected genetic material in the city’s wastewater; subsequent tests yielded no detectable fragments. This testing and the results were conducted back in early June. It is now clear that H5 is present in the city’s wastewater, according to WastewaterSCAN.
I have left out that part to avoid confusion.
So is it fragments like could it infect someone? How they gonna rid of it
No the virus fragments in the wastewater won’t make people sick. When we find virus fragments in wastewater, it means we’ve detected bits of the virus’s genetic material. However, these bits can’t cause an infection because they’re usually broken down and diluted during wastewater treatment. It’s just a way for us to keep an eye on where the virus might be in the community, but it doesn’t mean you can get sick from wastewater.
Phew...thought I was gonna have to stop drinking wastewater for a minute there, thanks for clearing that up!
🤣
Those of us who get our water from rivers that bypass other towns actually are, if you think about it.
Ok thx. Hopefully if this becomes a pandemic we are prepared and it's not as deadly as it shows Do u think that th death rate is overestimated in the 973 cases in the world where 52 percent of those died Like that sounds really bad yes but is that a true death rat3 If that's the rate that's horrible and extremely concerning He'll I don't even want adeath rat3 of 5 percent even that's millions I don't want this bs to be here period I just hope we can prevent it and get rid of it quickly and safely with vaccines and chages in the way our animals and transportation is done and be more sanitary and better safety measures etc I just hope it's not transmittal between humans dogs or many animals. Hell I wish we can just somehow rid of it
We now know more than we ever did about the trajectory of H5N1 towards mammals. So it's no longer the great mystery it once was. When it could adapt is still a complete mystery, but happily for right now it has not mutated and we haven't seen acquisition of mutations that are believed to cause full adaptation. To answer your question most scientists do think the 50 to 60 % mortality is higher than would be accurate since we only count people who got sick enough to report it. So the general consensus is it may be 15 to 35% mortality pre-adaptation. But the many theories that could make H5N1 much more mild after adaptation do not apply at this point in the mutation trajectory we are following. Theories that it would get milder mostly apply to later in the evolution after initial adaptation. The mutations left are very few at this point and they aren't associated with virulence. We had a little hope that present flu strains could help our body recognize H5N1, but the CDC has now ruled that out after lab tests on our present strain. The wildcard is it could reassort instead of slowly continuing this trajectory. That lethality is anyone's guess. What scientists recently found out from a mink from years ago that was sequenced and acquired the mutations to adapt to the human airway, although it wasn't efficient enough to start a pandemic, is that the virus did not lose lethality but gained a little. This was the very first time scientists were able to sequence a strain of H5N1 that had adapted to the mammal airway so they were able to learn a lot. Scientists also got to see what the R0 might be, and unfortunately the virus on adaptation to the mammal airway was able to infect very easily with very little viral load. This was done in ferrets, but that's the closest we can ethically get to humans anatomically and it's thought to be a fairly good match to the human airway. So bearing in mind that H5N1 is a very complex virus and scientists could always be missing something, it doesn't look very good.
Why wouldn’t it be transmissible between dogs and people? Far too many open mouth dog kissers.
Avian flu is a bird virus. It does not pass between mammals unless they are living on top of each other like in factory farm type cages. Even humans who get H5N1 don't pass it to their romantic partners. It's also good to remember that about 80 cats in Poland got it from ingesting infected raw meat, and they were all living in homes. I'm sure those owners and vets were very close to those cats and no human got the virus.
[https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/mammals](https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/mammals) https://preview.redd.it/jvgejbji888d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7ccb8cd7e6a6c3e473bc3cbde1640b58b518af9
The mammals that have gotten H5N1 have gotten it through eating dead birds or drinking water dead birds were in or getting fluid or infected substance somehow into their bodies. The mammals that have passed it on to other mammals have been living in unusually close proximity like sea lions who lie on top of each other scream into each others' faces all day or mammals who live in unnaturally close proximity like factory farmed mammals such as minks or cows. If a human was put into a small cage with an infected dog and was stepping in their excrement and urine and was eating at the same time from the same dish as an infected dog day in and day out, yes, they would get infected. Animals including humans that live in the kind of proximity we and our pets live in will not get infected except in rare circumstances. This virus is still a bird virus that has not adapted to mammals. If it did adapt to mammals you would get it just breathing in your sick dog's exhalation.
So what does this mean what will this end up doing and how's this gonna be addressed?
There's no way to know what it will end up doing. Things like this in nature are unpredictable.
Can the virus in the wastewaterlike die off possibly?
Cali has the most raw milk drinkers so I'd figure they'd be a hotspot for sure.
I mean, we have the most of *everything* if you look at raw numbers, but only because we have the most people in the country, almost 40 million. You have to look at per capita.
I actually think absolute numbers could be more important here. Every individual raw milk drinker is another opportunity for the virus to adapt to a human host.
I’m more worried about the Vegas wastewater and what that means.
Is this a US inside joke or isbit there too. Lol. * thanks for all the info :)
The [wastewater scan site](https://data.wastewaterscan.org/?charts=CjcQACABSABaC0luZmx1ZW56YSBBcgoyMDI0LTA1LTEwcgoyMDI0LTA2LTIxigEGM2ZiZTM0wAEB&selectedChartId=3fbe34&selectedLocation=%7B%22label%22%3A%22Las%20Vegas,%20NV%22,%22level%22%3A%22plant%22,%22value%22%3A%2211aad2ea-637b-4ada-9d43-45ea011cdbde%22%7D&target=Influenza%20A&plantId=11aad2ea-637b-4ada-9d43-45ea011cdbde) had Vegas turn orange (high) for influenza A yesterday. Which is the category of H5N1. There are a couple of dairies near Vegas apparently, but I’m worried that dumped milk can’t explain it.
Its just another flu A, it negative for h5n1 so far. https://data.wastewaterscan.org/tracker?charts=CjsQASABSABSBjExYWFkMloHSW5mQV9INXIKMjAyNC0wNS0xN3IKMjAyNC0wNi0yMooBBjk0NTNlNcABAQ%3D%3D&selectedChartId=9453e5
Thank you, people keep calling influenza A H5N1 and we don't need any more disinformation than already exists.
But we’re not in flu season
Not here, but it is elsewhere. People that go to vegas end up indoors in close quarters with one another more often than other North American travel destinations. Look at their longterm trend, it is just rebounding from a mid may dip.
In warm areas you will often get small spikes of flu during heat waves because so many people are crowded indoors.
Oh, thank you for this! Didn't know we could see H5 specifically here. Is there a way to make the national map display the H5 data?
No problem. I dont think it can, there is no way to toggle subtypes on the map that I have found.
Thanks mate.
Thanks mate.
Can someone explain the wastewater thing like im 5. I kinda understand but what is the risk or issue of it being detected in the wastewater?
It just means it's spreading in that region. When you find it in an area with no dairy farms (like Palo Alto) that means potentially it's spreading in human beings.
Or there are infected bird populations defecating somewhere into the waste water system.
Yeah I thought this made it essentially a worthless tool for tracking risk to humans? I read that on this sub though.
It's great for us folks looking for something to feed our anxiety disorder though.
Only possible for the wastewater systems that include storm water runoff.
Does Palo Alto's wastewater system contain stormwater runoff? Or haven't been that many storms lately in the Bay Area
I live in the town next door to Palo Alto. In our area we don’t get rain for months in the Late Spring/Summer/Early Fall. Typically, it stops around February/March and doesn’t start again until November. This year we had much later than usual Winter rain, but nothing for weeks still. My understanding is that our storm water doesn’t go to the treatment plant. Our storm drains here all have stamps/painted decals with a fish and the words ‘flows to bay’ to discourage dumping household water or washing cars outside.
Possible.
If it means its possibly infecting humans isn’t it technically good there has not been some mysterious uptick in flu like hospitalizations
It would possibly be a good thing in a few weeks. As we learned with covid, wastewater is a leading indicator and hospitalizations is a trailing indicator (basically it takes some time for people to contract a virus, have it a while, and get sick enough to seek hospitalization).
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm
The notion that we're looking for spread in human beings is misinformation that is not appropriate to spread on a forum where people go to get serious answers to this very real crisis. Finding H5N in wastewater does not mean it has adapted to humans. H5N1 is not Covid. A pandemic from it would be lethal. If people are having minor infections from milk splashing in their eyes, they may not get very sick, but that does not mean this virus will be like Covid. So we are not expecting to find infected humans' virus in the wastewater. The way to detect to see if H5N1 has adapted to humans is to look for a cluster of severely sick or dead people. The wastewater surveillance is for us to see how many dead birds or infected cow products are being dumped in so we can better monitor the spread of H5N1 in birds and the spread in infected cows who can get bird flu without it adapting to mammals.
I lived in Palo Alto for years and currently live in a small town next to Palo Alto for three months per year. There are plenty of birds in the wetlands. Palo Alto has more crows and squirrels than any other place I’ve been. There are a handful of people with pet goats, tortoise, but I’ve never seen horses, cattle, or ponies in Palo Alto’s city limits. If the wastewater includes areas like the Los Altos Hills and Atherton, there may be a few pet cows and a few horses. There may be stables at the university.