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Biden administration officials said Wednesday they have no current plans to authorize a stockpiled bird flu vaccine, despite an escalating outbreak among livestock in the U.S. and at least 58 human infections across seven states. Almost all bird flu cases in the U.S. have been in farmworkers who have had contact with infected animals — either dairy cows or poultry — aside from a patient in Missouri and a child in California. The federal government has two bird flu vaccine candidates available in limited quantities in the nation’s Strategic National Stockpile, though they need to be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration before they can be used. Still, some public health experts believe the time for vaccination is now, particularly for farmworkers. In 1976, at the first signs of an H1N1 swine flu outbreak in the U.S., public health officials quickly initiated a nationwide vaccine campaign.

Persons: Trump, Robert F, Kennedy Jr, Nirav Shah, ” Shah, ”, “, farmworkers, Jennifer Nuzzo, Shah, William Schaffner, Schaffner, Keith Poulsen, it’s, ” Poulsen, Nuzzo, Poulsen Organizations: Biden, Department of Health, Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, Department of Agriculture, USDA, Food and Drug Administration, Pandemic, Brown University School of Public Health, Administration, Strategic Preparedness, HHS, FDA, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Trump, CDC, Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Locations: U.S, farmworkers, Missouri, California, Canada, Barre, Wisconsin

☆ One major challenge facing Trump’s chosen health leaders: Keeping politics separate from science
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-26 | by ( Deidre Mcphillips | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

A key challenge for all of the Trump administration’s new public health leaders, the experts said, will be keeping politics out of science. CNN has reached out to Nesheiwat and Makary for comment and did not receive a response. Some said that could put them at odds with Kennedy, whom Trump has chosen for the nation’s top health post as HHS secretary. It doesn’t seem that he has much experience working in the field of public health,” said Castrucci, an epidemiologist who is president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, a nonprofit focused on strengthening the US public health system. The US surgeon general typically serves as the voice of the administration’s public health policy while promoting their own agenda of issues that they feel are important to the health of American people.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, Johns Hopkins, CNN —, Janette Nesheiwat, David Weldon, Marty Makary, Makary, Robert F, Kennedy Jr, Weldon, Trump’s, Katie Miller, Trump, Mr, Kennedy, ’ Dr, Ashish Jha, Joe Biden, Jha, “, ” Jha, “ There’s, ” Weldon, ” Dr, Jerome Adams, Weldon’s, ” Adams, Peter Hotez, ” Hotez, “ That’s, ”, Jennifer Nuzzo, Amesh, ” Adalja, Brian Castrucci, he’s, there’s, That’s, ” Castrucci, Paul Offit, Weldon “, you’d, Offit, ” Offit, hasn’t, Hotez, Nesheiwat, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, ” Nuzzo, CNN’s Jacqueline Howard, Brenda Goodman, Meg Tirrell Organizations: CNN, Fox News, US Centers for Disease Control, US Food and Drug Administration, Public, FDA, US Department of Health, Human Services, CDC, Trump, HHS, Brown University’s School of Public Health, White, US Public Health Service, Texas Children’s, Covid, Pandemic, Brown University School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, “, de, Foundation, Assurance, Agency for Vaccine, Disease Control, Vaccine Education, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Weldon, Studies, CNN Health, Kennedy’s, RFK Jr, Health Locations: New York, Florida, Weldon, Texas, Tampa, CDC’s

The recommendation coincides with a new report finding asymptomatic bird flu infection in some workers. Those cases were discovered using blood, or serology, testing and seem to have been transmitted from sick animals, not people. To date, 46 people have been diagnosed with bird flu, also known as H5N1, in the United States this year. Of those 115, eight (7%) had antibodies showing they’d been infected with the bird flu. Until now, workers who had a known exposure to bird flu but didn’t have symptoms haven’t been routinely tested.

Persons: Nirav Shah, Demetre Daskalakis, ” Daskalakis, they’d, Shah, “, ”, who’s, Jennifer Nuzzo, “ We’ve, ” Nuzzo, Daskalakis Organizations: Centers for Disease Control, Prevention, CDC, National Center, farmworkers, Pandemic, Brown University School of Public Health, Food and Drug Administration Locations: United States, California, Washington, Colorado, Michigan

☆ As bird flu outbreak expands in California, dairy farms report it’s worse than they expected
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-08 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —A third farmworker has tested positive for bird flu in California, according to the state’s health department. Like the first two human cases in California, this third case is a farmworker who was in contact with sick dairy cattle. The CDC’s Principal Deputy Director, Dr. Nirav Shah, said in a news briefing on Friday that these cases were not a surprise. The California Department of Food and Agriculture has been conducting bulk milk tank sampling in areas where herds test positive. The first infected herds in California were found in late August.

Persons: Nirav Shah, “, ” Shah, ”, Jennifer Nuzzo, ” Nuzzo, Eric Deeble, Deeble, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, GISAID Organizations: CNN, US Centers for Disease Control, California Department of Public Health, Brown University, “, United States Department of Agriculture, California Department of Food, Agriculture, USDA, American Veterinary Medical Association, Quality Assurance, Los Angeles Times, CDC, CNN Health, Plant Health, Service Locations: California, United States Department of Agriculture . California, Colorado, United States, Africa

☆ How Scared Should I Be of Bird Flu? - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-19 | by ( Jennifer B. Nuzzo | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

How worried you should be about H5N1, the bird flu virus spreading on dairy farms in the United States, depends on whom you are. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has described the current H5N1 risk to the general public as low. The risk that the virus poses is tempered by the fact that it doesn’t spread easily among people — yet. Right now public-health experts have the difficult task of urging authorities who can do something about H5N1 to take action, while maintaining public trust. Experts need to be clear that currently, the levers of action are squarely in the hands of government leaders and agricultural interests, not in the hands of the general public.

Organizations: Disease Control Locations: United States

Even as it has become increasingly clear that the bird flu outbreak on the nation’s dairy farms began months earlier — and is probably much more widespread — than previously thought, federal authorities have emphasized that the virus poses little risk to humans. Yet there is a group of people who are at high risk for infection: the estimated 100,000 men and women who work on those farms. That leaves the workers and their families vulnerable to a poorly tracked pathogen. And it poses broader public health risks. If the virus were to find its way into the wider population, experts say, dairy workers would be a likely route.

Persons: ”, Jennifer Nuzzo Organizations: Pandemic, Brown University School of Public Health

☆ Some states are loosening their Covid isolation guidelines, shifting away from CDC recommendations
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Deidre Mcphillips | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Oregon changed its isolation policy in May when the Covid-19 public health emergency lifted, and California followed suit earlier this month. The recent order from the California health department notes that the potential infectious period spans from two days before through 10 days after symptoms or a positive test. Less restrictive isolation policies could allow people to feel more comfortable with testing, which could prompt them to get treatment or feel more comfortable taking other protective measures. Dr. Dean Sidelinger, Oregon’s state health officer, said that equity was a key factor considered in the decision to change isolation policy in the state. Public health policy decisions are rarely black-and-white, experts say, and weighing tradeoffs can be more of an art than a perfect science.

Persons: Tomás Aragón, ”, Jennifer Nuzzo, we’re, Dan Barouch, Sarita Shah, Dean Sidelinger, ” Barouch, –, ” Nuzzo, Shah, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, you’re, ” Shah, “ Organizations: CNN —, US Centers for Disease Control, California Department of Public Health, CDC, Pandemic, Brown University School of Public Health, Center, Virology, Vaccine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical, Emory University, Get CNN, CNN Health Locations: California, Oregon, COVID, hospitalizations, Covid

☆ Do Masks Work To Prevent Covid? - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Jennifer B. Nuzzo | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

‌There is good evidence that masks can protect ‌‌people who use them correctly and consistently. Other studies show that higher-quality masks, such as N95 respirators, are better able to keep the virus out than less well-fitting surgical masks or cloth masks. ‌And according to that limited evidence, masking at the population level did not have a clear impact on reducing infections. To address the quality issue of these studies, the Cochrane review looked only at randomized trials evaluating the effectiveness of masking. ‌‌Many of the studies that the Cochrane review included looked at the spread of influenza.

☆ U.S. records 100 million Covid cases, but more than 200 million Americans have probably had it
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

The U.S. officially recorded more than 100 million cases as of Tuesday, just under one-third of the total population, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Covid-19 has easily infected more than 200 million in the U.S. alone since the beginning of the pandemic — some people more than once. "There are have been at least 200 million infections in the U.S., so this is a small portion of them," Frieden said. The estimate was based on a survey of commercial lab data that found about 58% of Americans had antibodies as a result of a Covid infection. The more than 21 million additional confirmed cases on top of the CDC's February estimate of about 187 million total infections gives a low-end estimate of more than 208 million infections since the pandemic began.

☆ China's people are protesting the country's severe zero-COVID policies, and public-health experts agree with them
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Protests are erupting across China over the country's restrictive zero-COVID policies. Public-health experts say the policies are unsustainable, ineffective, and unnecessarily severe. Without vaccination campaigns targeting older adults, China's lockdowns may only delay a catastrophic COVID wave. Tyrone Siu/ReutersThere is no easy way forward for China, but constant 2020-style lockdowns are not the solution, according to public-health experts, who called the policies unsustainable, ineffective, and irrational. As a result, Huang thinks the zero-COVID lockdowns are completely unwarranted.

But it still refuses to use Western mRNA vaccines to innoculate the population more quickly. China's hesitancy to use Western vaccine technology is contributing to the mass protests against its COVID-19 restrictions. Despite that, China is still refusing to approve and distribute Western vaccines to innoculate its citizens. In lieu of the Western vaccines, which are based on mRNA, China has been relying on its own brand of jabs, which rely on inactivated, or killed, virus. Germany this week suggested China should use Western vaccines to speed up the process and protect the country from the virus, Politico reported.

Flu cases are already rising in parts of the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The convergence of viruses is hitting health care systems as they're forced to reckon with staffing shortages that worsened during the pandemic. Staffing deficits mean there is little wiggle room to accommodate any additional surges of patients, whether they're sick with Covid, flu or other illness. But as the cold weather sets in and people increasingly gather indoors, Covid cases are expected to rise. The vast majority of Covid cases circulating now are an omicron subvariant, BA.5.

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