Bird Flu Is Quietly Getting Scarier (The Atlantic)

[-]

Business_Arm1976@reddit

There is a bug causing rapid-onset pneumonia-like symptoms where I live (not in India). One of my kids needed an inhaler and a steroid, and it's affecting both children and adults (I know some adults who have the pneumonia-like symptoms too).

There isn't much time between the onset of regular cold-like symptoms and the onset of the pneumonia-like symptoms. You get either one pretty much immediately (mine is a cold with a wet/lung butter, disgusting cough, but one of my children developed retractions and needed a steroid and inhaler to breathe, theirs was described as a "viral pneumonia " by 2 doctors).

To be clear, no one is dying of this where I live, but it's tangible/everyone is hacking up a lung right now. It's not exactly flu season here yet, for context.

[-]

Southern-Lobster-684@reddit

Whooping cough is going around in my region (NW US). Make sure you're up to date on your Tdap vaccination. It's done every 10 years so people forget about it. If you don't know when your last one was, just get one.

[-]

Business_Arm1976@reddit

This virus isn't whooping cough, but it's still good to check up on your vaccines. I've had the TDap multiple times in the last few years due to pregnancies etc (and my kids have had theirs too).

Whooping cough is especially scary for little ones, not at all something anyone wants!

[-]

Southern-Lobster-684@reddit

It doesn't sound like it, but yes, I thought it was a good chance to remind folks to protect themselves from the things we know about. Even in adults, this one can be bad. Good on you for looking out for your family!

[-]

OBotB@reddit

Probably the same thing going on here in North Carolina - the daughter of one of my kids' teachers' had a fever over a weekend that they couldn't get down, then it got worse and she was found to have acute pneumonia cause from a bacterial infection.

Of course they also have Covid running through various classrooms (over the past two months there have been spikes of it in our state), stomach bugs, flu/colds, and whatever was passed to one of mine the other week (not Covid, did test for it) that had zero fever but lots of intense congestion for almost a week and severe leg muscle pain about three days in.

Remember to get flu and Covid vaccines, it is the time to get them in and have them effective before holiday seasons (including Halloween) hits. Lots of places will give the Covid ones for ages 12+, for under 12 you have to go through your pediatrician and those are being sneaky about offerings. Mine only has two of the many flu vaccine clinics they are holding that also offer the Covid vaccines, and they do not offer it any other way at the moment. They also did not send out announcements, so one just passed, the other is at the end of the month and there are limited spots. If you have kids, check in with your pediatrician on availability!

[-]

DragonAteMyHomework@reddit

I hope they figure out what it is soon and develop a treatment. Anything like that needs to be handled quickly.

[-]

Business_Arm1976@reddit

Yes it's the second week of my daughter having a thick, heavy chest cough and on and off fever. It's lasting this long for everyone. Each day passes and you're just not better/the virus is taking its sweet time clearing. It's been a week or more of no real progress. My partner had a fever for 3 days (I got lucky and didn't). I myself am still coughing up lung sauce, other adults I know have either been down with pneumonia-like symptoms or they have the version I have.

[-]

fargenable@reddit

I’m on my second week, got sick in Ecuador, but wasn’t too bad. Started feeling better, came to the Dominican Republic, worked out a few times, drink one night, now stuffy nose and cough has returned.

[-]

Business_Arm1976@reddit

Sorry to hear you've been unwell, I hope you feel better soon

[-]

tartpeasant@reddit

We all had something like this in the beginning of August. It came on so suddenly and my youngest toddler and husband both threw up a couple times too. The kids were fine pretty quickly but my husband and I just recently stopped coughing.

[-]

Business_Arm1976@reddit

Sorry to hear it, I hope you are all OK now

[-]

IWantAStorm@reddit

I will never understand why vaccines are always updated around school starting, weather changes...covid vaccine wears off over six months which will line up with a holiday.

[-]

DragonAteMyHomework@reddit

Wow, that's awful. I hope all of you get better soon and doctors figure out what's going around.

[-]

hot_dog_pants@reddit

COVID is very high right now and the rapid tests don't show positive until 4-5 days or later.

[-]

interesting_times24@reddit

Oh great. Can’t wait for this new pandemic and add in monkey pox to the mix

[-]

wine_and_dying@reddit

If you combine both vax you’ll turn into a Monkeybird from the 90s cartoon Pirates of the Dark Water. A Facebook grandma shared a meme that said so.

[-]

SoggyContribution239@reddit

What a great show, I am going to go try and find it for streaming.

[-]

SpecialistOk3384@reddit

I think several people are sharing this observation. On X/Twitter, the amalgamation of scientists I follow are not getting enough information about what is going on.

We should already have the sample virus characterization uploaded. It has not. And yes, they were doing a full study of it. Something may be getting delayed.

My current biggest concern is human adaptation.

Look at India. On both the West most side near Pakistan and the East most side near Bangladesh, there are reports of high fatality unknown disease, consistent with severe flu symptoms and death from severe acute Pneumonia.

https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/unknown-fever-kills-14-people-in-6-days-in-kutch-9557236/

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/india/india-emerging-diseases-and-other-health-threats/996319-india-4-children-dead-several-others-admitted-to-hospital-due-to-%E2%80%99mysterious-fever%E2%80%99-in-bihar%E2%80%99s-araria#post996537

[-]

SpecialistOk3384@reddit

further important update:

The sample the CDC has to work with did not have enough mRNA strands in it to meaningfully characterize it.

To read the genome, they take samples and amplify it by replicating it in as specific manner. Similar to how you amplify a digital image, you amplify the data. If you amplify it too much, you get noise like a camera set to an ISO of 409,600 vs 400. That's doubling it 9 times. That is not too say each amplification cycle for sequencing is doubling like a camera. I would need to learn more about this.

They've been amplifying it beyond the point of returning good data, and they're at 38 cycles. Ideally, less than 35. They're at the point where there just isn't enough of the target sequence.

It's the fault of no-one.

https://x.com/Alexander_Tin/status/1833959235270410700

[-]

SpecialistOk3384@reddit

Good update as of tonight:

All contacts with the Missouri individual are asymptomatic. https://x.com/Alexander_Tin/status/1833876625038999783

...so, where did they get it?

[-]

Verucapep@reddit

gif

[-]

OffensiveCenter@reddit

Damn

[-]

mumwifealcoholic@reddit

Crap.

And it will be so much worse thanks to COVID fatigue.

I wonder does the normal flu jab give an protection?

[-]

LatrodectusGeometric@reddit

No but there are bird flu vaccines that can be rolled out if needed.

[-]

CharmingMechanic2473@reddit

Thank you. 🙏🏼

[-]

BigJSunshine@reddit

This is right, I follow H5N1 news closely because it decimates cats and as a childless cat lady who has a small rescue, I am terrified of it.

In the late Spring the cdc announced the is base vaccine stockpiled, ready to be finalized (sorry I don’t know the terminology) into appropriate format (presumably once H5N1 mutates into H2H transmission). Like covid this flu mutates into to different variants.

[-]

Elegant-Gas-2195@reddit

The process of finalizing the bird flu vaccine we already have stockpiled, takes many months. We dont know the exact formula to add to the vaccine we have stockpiled until human transmission hits. On top of that, there still has to be a clinical trial after they figure out the correct formula, which also will take months. From the time human transmission is taking place to the time when the govt can actually "roll out" their stockpile to us, will be MANY months....AFTER human transmission has already taken place.

[-]

LatrodectusGeometric@reddit

This doesn’t make sense. The version in the stockpile is a complete vaccine that is ready to be given to people. Making larger amounts of it is absolutely something that takes time, but this is actual vaccine in vials ready to go in arms where we have thousands of stockpiled doses.

[-]

CharlotteBadger@reddit

It’s my understanding that we can’t have a targeted vaccine yet, because we don’t know what we’re targeting yet. So we may have something that’s close, and there’s a possibility that it might be somewhat helpful, but we don’t have what we need to head this thing off if it goes H2H.

[-]

LatrodectusGeometric@reddit

We have vaccines for H5N2 already. They are expected to be effective, even if not matched perfectly.

[-]

Autymnfyres77@reddit

Thanks for the explanation. But "thousands of vials just isn't comforting to me. *Thousands? Who gets those while others just deal for many months with the risk of getting it?

[-]

LatrodectusGeometric@reddit

I don’t have an exact count (I don’t do SNS work) but I would assume in the tens to hundreds of thousands. In general vaccine would be rolled out for high-risk contacts of people with illness or for people who were otherwise directly exposed to the disease. In the past, it has been suggested for family/household contacts of people who had avian flu.

[-]

mumwifealcoholic@reddit

We're not all in the US. Doubt you have enough fro everyone. Poors gonna die.

[-]

Mountain_Fig_9253@reddit

We don’t even have enough in the US for everyone. We should be using the time we have now to build the infrastructure needed to rapidly ramp up production but nooooo.

[-]

hot_dog_pants@reddit

We don't have enough for even the healthcare workers.

[-]

onlyIcancallmethat@reddit

The CDC: Seasonal flu vaccination will not prevent infection with bird flu viruses, but can reduce the risk of getting sick with human influenza viruses and thus the risk for seasonal and bird flu co-infection.

[-]