Sharon Astyk
@SharonAstyk
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Science Writer, Author of Four Books on Food, Agriculture, Energy and Climate. Mother of 11 Amazing kids. Farmer. Data Chick. Plant Addict.
Schenectady, NY
Joined July 2021
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Folks are asking how to prepare for bird flu. Here's the first part of my work on this. This is going to be a three part essay, focusing first on what you can do BEFORE things happen, second on what things might be like when H5N1 begins to go human to human...
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You know, every time people complain about how hard it is to wear a mask I want to point to my kids. Like my daughter, who at 17, not only wore a mask every single day to school for two years, but who SANG THE PART OF AUDREY II in Little Shop of Horrors, so well that...
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Ok, so important study came out today about H5N1. And even if you normally think that I'm way too worried about this, you might want to pay attention.
It was a study of only TWO of the 173 farms we KNOW have had H5N1 in cows.
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I probably have had more kids than 99% of the people here. I fostered for 10 years, more than 40 kids. 4 bio, 6 adopted permanent kids. I've had medically fragile babies, toddlers with medical issues...THE CONSTANT SICK IS NOT NORMAL - period.
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People assumed the school had used the cast recording for the performance, and so well that she won a best supporting actress award for best REGIONAL performance while masking the entire time.
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Or my daughter Malkiah who, while performing in a show, did three one handed cartwheels across a stage and landed in a split, while masked every minute. Who also ran 5K indoor races in a mask.
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Or my children Zion and Kai who are doing archery in the 95 degree heat, while wearing a mask, without complaining. The same kids come home and I have to remind them to take off their masks because they don't even notice them. The problem was never the masks.
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My kids get harassed for masking. They don't mind the other kids that much, but they mind the adults. On picture day the kids get told "just take it off for a minute." My daughter Judith held out to harassment. My son Zion stood up and said "No mask, no pic, Dude"
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Yael, dressed as the ghost tour guide at a Halloween haunted house, she captioned this picture, "Wearing my mask under my mask."
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So last Friday, the CDC announced that the THIRD contact of the MO patient had been symptomatic after contact with the patient. And announced that an antibody assay to see if it was H5N1 was annouced.
That's a procedure that takes 24-48 hours to get back.
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If you think H5N1 is going to kill us all, let's remember that the year we all wore masks, pediatric flu deaths were 1/180th of normal.
See that one year with one death? One year in which only one kid tragically died. We all know why. Look at the date.EVERYONE WAS WEARING MASKS. How many lives saved, just from one germ.
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And human flu season starts in a month or so, and flu viruses reassort easily.
Guys it will be a freakin' miracle if we don't have a pandemic before the end of the year. I implore you, if you have ANY EXTRA RESOURCES prepare NOW, and be ready to help others.
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I want to add two important caveats. First, a reminder that in May 1918, the first wave of an avian flu that infected humans in Kansas and on military bases around the US was no more lethal than a normal flu. By fall, however, it had mutated and killed 50-100 MILLION people.
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and finally, a discussion of knock-on effects on events and supply chains etc... in different scenarios. Today's essay is the first part.
Now first, let's make sure we're all absolutely clear. Being able to prepare is a luxury.
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Definitely time to repost this. Pigs are ASYMPTOMATIC WITH H5N1. And there is no comprehensive testing program.
“No infected pig had influenza-like symptoms, indicating that influenza A (H5N1) viruses can replicate undetected for prolonged periods, facilitating avian virus adaptation to mammalian hosts”
Pigs do not show any signs of H5N1 which is concerning now that USDA and CFIA are
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1. DONATE MONEY IF YOU HAVE IT TO FARMWORKER ADVOCACY GROUPS. Farmworkers need cooling vests to wear PPE in the extreme heat. They need PPE and farm owners to let them wear it. They need medical care from places that won't turn them in to INS. They need legal advocacy. Donate.
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If I'm wrong, you can laugh at me and I'll take it with good cheer. But this is really serious. Previous outbreaks have a 50% mortality rate.
And yes, I know most of the farmworkers haven't died. That was true of the flu deaths in the first round of 1918 too.
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Second, as I've written before, the fact that we are in an incredibly high Covid wave, with deaths occurring both from immediate infection and post-infection heart, lung etc... issues means that no, we don't know for sure that no farmworkers HAVE died.
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Excess deaths have just about doubled in the last four years - a LOT of extra people are just dying, and most ERs don't do a ton of testing, so it is totally possible that H5N1 infection is being missed and deaths are being attributed to Covid, pneumonia, etc...
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Guys, this is the sporadic human clusters that represents Level 5 of 6. We can add in probable missed cases indicated by spiked human wastewater in at least some major cities.
The agricultural fairs have begun, with no protections. Poultry, pigs and cows, together.
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Given that the most exposed folks are farmworkers, many undocumented, this is a concern because they may be too afraid to seek medical treatment.
Which means we don't know what a death rate from H5N1 is going to be. Until it happens, it will only be a guesstimate.
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It means you have some of time, money, health and support beyond the very basic. If you don't, not being able to prepare can be really, really scary and overwhelming.
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They may have either been infected by raw milk being pasteurized nearby, OR by human to human transmission. We just don't know.
This confirms that reports of people ill at the same time as cows that go ack to February are probably indicative of missed H5N1 cases.
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We could get lucky - a recent study suggested that that's a possibility, pointing out that a mutation that makes it more transmissible to humans might make it milder. But are we prepared to bet our LIVES AND OUR HEALTH AND OUR LOVED ONES LIVES on that coming out this way?
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At least three other farmworkers from the same farms, who were not tested were also symptomatic at the same time.
The farmworkers had not been provided with PPE. Most concerning, one of the workers was NOT a dairy worker, but served food in a cafeteria to other farmworkers.
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We know that's probably an undercount from previous studies.
They tested 14 farmworkers, and found that two had had symptomatic respiratory illness at the same time the cows were sick, and both tested positive for antibodies.
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The virus just isn't very good at infecting humans yet. Do you want to bet your life and your posterity that it won't get better? Do you want to to bet that people will be going to work with a 10-50% mortality rate?
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Advocate AGAINST punitive treatment of the homeless. Also extremely vulnerable are seniors and adults in residential care homes - stand up for masking in them, or provide masks to your family members.
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First, if you have some of these things - like time but not money, or health but not support, you may be able to do SOME of these things - for example, if you have time and health you may be able to store water in plastic soda bottles you get from other people's recycling.
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That the banks and grocery stores and factories in China will be open? That the hospitals won't be overwhelmed? That antivirals will be available? That everything will go on as usual? We need to get ready, now. (More on what to do coming up soon.)
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Let's remember AT ITS WORST when we were burying people in mass graves, covid mortality was 2%. Now it is .5%. So this is going to be much worse in all likelihood, and infinitely more disruptive. Could we get lucky and have a much lower mortality?
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If you have support but not health, you may be able to write some advocacy scripts for others. If you don't have any of those things, you need not to beat yourself up about it, and that's WHY so much of my version of preparedness is about creating community resources.
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Don't get me wrong, it is normal for your kids to get a few snot-related things during their first year in daycare. It is NOT normal for your child to be hospitalized repeatedly, to get multiple severe viruses, or to be non-stop on antibiotics. That is covid immune damage.
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TALK TO LOCAL FARMERS YOU SUPPORT about bird flu and biosafety.
Make it clear that you are concerned about health and safety for them, their animals and their workers. Ask how you can help. Many small farmers are terrified to find out about H5N1 in their herds or flocks.
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@annajanejoyner
We 100% have to plan for every place flooding, burning, drought, extreme heat, tornadoes. I know people always think it can't come to them - there are no good places, just less bad ones.
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3. If you can generally prepare for more difficult times, do so. You will want a stock of additional food and water particularly, and medical supplies when possible. I've written whole books about this, so I'm not going to explain it all here.
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Sure, but you are betting your lives and those of everyone you love. So let's plan for the worst and hope for better. And remember that this is happening WHILE we are also in another, unresolved pandemic. We don't know what effect Covid immune damage will have.
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What tools are there for the guesstimates?
First, the animal models. The CDC ran experiments infecting ferrets with the strains circulating in cows and workers and what happened was that all the infected ferrets died. That isn't what's happening in humans, but it isn't good.
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@TeresaAndScout
We were buying our farm and I was inspecting the outbuildings, and the real estate agent turned to my husband and said "You should inspect the barn, she already looked at the kitchen." My husband said "She's the one who knows what she's doing and we won't use you."
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I will try to be clear about what we can do with what resources, so instead of feeling terrible because you can't, recognize that what I'm doing now is calling on people who CAN to step up for those who can't.
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We also have an estimate from the WHO about what they anticipate, and their doctors estimated between 12%-38% mortality earlier this year. So that's a good working number.
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4. Donate money to organizations that provide food and housing to people.
The most vulnerable people to a spreading disease after farmworkers, are usually the homeless, and advocating for housing them protects your whole community. These organizations are going to be strapped.
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Second, before I get down to concrete details, I want to answer the question on everyone's lips:
"Is this really going to be that bad since none of the farmworkers have died? Might it not be too bad?"
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And it is frightening as hell. And I know parents are between a rock and a hard place with daycare and etc... But those fragile child brains and immune systems are truly THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ON EARTH. This is a societal problem shoved back on parents in the cruelest way.
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Parents are doing the best they can, but something terrible is happening to all of our kids, and it is wrong, and no matter how much they tell you it is normal, it isn't. The people I'm angry at are the ones who had the power to help and withheld it for fake normalcy. Cowards.
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So, mitigations for a bird flu pandemic fall into several categories.
1. Pre-human to human spread activities. These are things you can do now to reduce risk and protect those who are most vulnerable, understanding that this could happen sooner or later.
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Second, there is historic mortality - which for KNOWN cases is about 50% - now there are almost certainly cases that have been missed, so that's probably not perfectly accurate, but its what we have.
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There isn't a lot of good news here, but remember that flu is EASIER to prevent than Covid.
Covid is one of the most contagious airborne diseases in history. But in the year that everyone was masking, the US and other nations saw almost zero flu, and one flu strain went extinct.
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That we are about to find out that we have human to human transmission and community spread. And that makes it likely that the MO man and his wife got it from the same community source. And that as I predicted, our massive covid wave and health care overwhelm is concealing H5N1
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6. If you have livestock of ANY kind, you need to up your biosecurity game.
First of all stop letting people come to your farm - the risks of transmission of disease are simply too great. If they do, remove shoes and bleach them, and cover shoes with paper sleeves.
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For medications, if you can afford it, you can often pay for a supplemental script (usually not for controlled substances) or a willing doctor may be able to raise your dosage and then let you cut pills in half to build up extras.The medication conundrum is a really hard one tho.
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What if you have no money? Well, there are some options out there. For example, many food pantries have some foods that aren't very popular and that they have extra of to give away. Dried beans and whole grains are very hard to get rid of because they take preparation.
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2. Scenarios for a full out pandemic, and preparations you can make for that.
3. Scenarios for knock-on concerns like supply chain disruptions, or political implications.
For today, let's talk about what we ALL should be doing IF WE CAN to make this less likely.
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5. If you work for or with any of these organizations, raise the alarm about bird flu, calmly.
Remind people about what happened at the start of covid. Bring talking points, and encourage any community organizations you are involved with to have an H5N1 plan.
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Remember this does not have to be the end of the world. The fact is that flu is preventable.
We can stop this. We can make safe choices. We can protect ourselves. Don't panic. Just prepare if you are able, and help others do so.
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When handling livestock, you should be masked. Avoid blowing manure dust into the air. Keep poultry and other animals indoors or under cover during waterfowl migration, and keep a close eye on signs of illness. Make sure manure you are using on produce has been hot composted.
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And yes, I know this isn't easy. I'm a long time farmer, and have raised just about every animal on earth. I've shoveled more than my share of manure, and this is a challenge, especially in the heat, but the stakes are too high not to.
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If you have the physical ability to do so, foraging in public spaces (or private ones with permission) can help you build up an additional supply of food. Community gardens and farms are a resource if you have no land and can garden.
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Preying on children for adult convenience is shameful and evil. And that's what's happening. It would not have been impossible to shift our society to protect our kids - we've done it before. And we don't know when the bill will come due.
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Hey folks, if you are preparing for an H5N1 pandemic, I have a 30 page downloadable, printable workbook that has been put together from my essays on H5N1. It includes manageable steps that people without much money or time or energy can do. You can buy it at my ko-fi shop....
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We need to find ways for community organizations to provide support to families - we cannot just shove everything onto women again. We NEED TO ADVOCATE FOR PEOPLE TO BE PAID FOR HOME CAREGIVING.
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And yet, it is 5 days later, and there has been no such allaying announcement. Which most likely means they can't make one. All the BAD news has come out on Thursday and Friday evenings to reduce attention. Which suggests to me....
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I have never gone fully back to work since 2020, and that is 100% because I have a medically vulnerable young adult child with cognitive disabilities, and kids who have already been through hell and don't need more. IT COSTS US and we are lucky as hell we can manage at all.
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And umm...it is kind of urgent, with all the anxiety about this and such. So THERE WOULD BE ZERO REASON not to announce the reassuring news that the results were back and the HCWs in MO didn't have H5N1, and there was not community spread.
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7. We all went through Covid, so we all know what happened.
Schools closed. Nursing homes and care homes stopped allowing visitation. Restaurants closed. Be ready for that sort of thing. Recognize that all caregiving responsibilities were dumped, mostly on women.
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Now is a great time to take a first aid or CERT class. Be ready to treat minor illnesses and small injuries at home. If the disease goes human to human, the last place you will want to be is at the hospital or urgent care, and health care quality will decline a lot.
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8. If you can safely do so, catch up on medical care.
Obviously this is really tough with the covid outbreak, so this sucks extra. But if you are able to get things done like dentistry, specialist visits and tests, do them.
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PPE, soap, and hand sanitizer are your friends.
If you can afford it, buy plenty. If you have them, donate them to food pantries, your library, community organizations to give away (if they actually will). Masking is going to come back into style.
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10. Support health care workers in your neighborhood and community.
These folks have already been slammed, many are suffering lingering effects of repeat covid infections, and exhausted from unending crises. Bird flu is going to make everything much, much worse.
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Does it make sense to bring Grandma home to live with someone? To get her set up with an Ipad and zoom check ins? Do you have homeschooling materials? What will happen if daycare is closed? Is there enough wine? I know, I know. Trust me on this one, I don't want to do it either.
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11. Form alliances in your community.
You do not have to get along on every issue (obviously there are some people you cannot ally with), but you can work together on common concerns. ANY KIND of preparedness is better than nothing except for the crazy gun type.
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I know, none of us want to have everything dumped back on us again (guys, I had 11 kids home full time for 15 months, I really get it!). It still may happen because sometimes crappy things do. So now is the time to plan for how that's going to work.
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12. Set up a quarantine area IF YOU CAN.
If you have a spare room, particularly if it has an attached bath, an unrented apartment, an RV, a shed or guest quarters, and can afford it, set them up with HEPA filtration, a microwave, etc...
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If you have a little bit of extra money and time, but not enough to meet all your needs, consider creating a preparedness cooperative - everyone kicks in as much as they can afford each month and then the group buys or makes something that will serve everyone or buys in bulk.
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So if you want your family to have doctors and nurses, you may need to help babysit your neighbors kids, drop dinner by, or loan that RV you use on vacations so someone can keep their family safe.
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If you have to dissemble to work with your neighbor who thinks H5N1 won't happen but is worried about EMPs or civil unrest or the fourth flooding of the season, fine, talk about that. There's enough overlap to make change on common ground, mostly.
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What should you DO if you are worried about avian influenza? Thoughts about the food supply and the future.
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Remember to make such organizations ACCESSIBLE - include your disabled friends and neighbors. Have a zoom option for meetings, and if you can cover someone else, do it.
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Worth noting that while it is perfectly possible that there is another explanation for three people having symptoms that look like H5N1 at once in the same region, who were in contact with one another, one of whom actually DID have H5N1, besides H2H transmission....
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Use them for your community to create an isolation space. Because what will happen in a crisis is that people will be returning home or heading to safer areas, and they will need to isolate from one another. Health care workers may also need it.
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So if you can't afford to buy a dehydrator, maybe you can build a community one in your neighborhood, and if you can't afford bulk oatmeal, getting together with neighbors might get you more than you can buy yourself.
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@IrishEcocritic
10 permanent kids. Foster parent to more than 40 children, many of them with medical issues or disabilities. No, that's not normal. It might be normal for a very young child first encountering the world in daycare to have six-eight illnesses in one year - but not EVERY year.
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Hi folks - If you are new to me, I'm a farmer and science writer focusing on the intersections between pandemics, demography, gender, climate change and political collapse. I also have a zillion kids and a dark sense of humor about most stuff. Glad to meetcha
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My first twitter thread foretells the future. 1/10
Do you want to know what is going to happen with the hepatitis outbreak? I can tell you exactly. I promise, in this, I can see the future PERFECTLY in my crystal ball. I must be psychic.
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@pellmellkell
Support farmworker legal aid and wear masks is Last of Us? I never saw the show but that sounds like a hell of a boring post apocalyptic show
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Seriously, we were at level 3 in January. Do you really think the progression will stop by itself? We are headed into a human H5N1 pandemic. Period.
@MicrobesInfect
“risk remains low”
@CDCFlu
is outright lying to the American public.
@CDCgov
should have elevated the
#H5N1
urgency to be able to rapidly investigate the situation.
#DontLookUP
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@lingerie_addict
Related, how critical mending, maintenence and care of clothing were when clothing took months or years to replace.
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We ALL want the Missouri case of HPAI to be zoonotic. But.. 1. CDC investigators definitely asked a LOT of questions about where the sick person walked, whether they had mice in their home, did they have bird feeders, etc... which makes that less likely.
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And ummm...let's release the info on separate days, reassuring people that every single one is a one-off.
Now there are 100% other explanations. The concealment is like a big "HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM"
Just saying.
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In one of my last posts, I suggested people store food and water. Every state agency that deals with emergencies and every federal one advises that people keep a two week supply of food and water stored. Like, you were always supposed to do this.
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Seriously, covid alone provides cover - they don't have to pull this shit. Unless, of course, there's some shit to hide. Then we might find out that three people got H5N1 from an unknown source, and one of them was an HCW who got it from a patient. Yeah...let's not.
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@AshleyGWinter
I have given birth four times and fostered 20+ babies, and I have to say you have produced an unusually beautiful baby.
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So I just tried to search H5N1 and the only proposed search on this app was "H5N1 fearmongering"- charming.
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@dr_seminnis
WTAF? The risks of HRT were incredibly well publicized - the fact that those risks aren't what people think they know is not. Not being able to distinguish between education and drug pushing is a reading comprehension problem.
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@lingerie_addict
As a plant geek and farmer, I love these threads because I want to do the same thing to all the flowers in the background. Like just to start, Wisteria wasn't introduced into England until a few years AFTER Bridgerton, and it doesn't bloom for four months.
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@heymrsbond
It was an active lie. We knew from the first animal trials and from the history of coronavirus vaccines that a vaccine would not be sterilizing. The only way to achieve an end would have been comprehensive, longer term lockdowns globally for a virus with this R0.
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2. During that time 1/2 a dozen countries will come to the conclusion it is covid. Israel and Italy will probably be the first. (I am not going to reiterate all the reasons we can be sure it is covid not adenovirus. I've been posting them all along
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