Bird Flu Capable of Airborne Transmission

Well, here we go (again).

A new study reported by the CDC shows H5N1 bird flu has developed the ability to spread through the air. In other words, it’s officially airborne.

The study focused on transmission in ferrets, and it noted that this strain “displayed reduced virulence… compared with another H5N1 virus isolated from a dairy farm worker in Texas.” As histories of the 1918 pandemic have shown, it doesn’t matter whether a novel virus looks “mild” at first, because it can undergo a process called passage and become more deadly as it evolves.

As I wrote last year, the first wave of the 1918 flu was mild.

This news happens to hit right after the current administration canceled a $600 million contract with Moderna to develop an H5N1 vaccine. At this point, we also still don’t know what the HHS is doing with Covid vaccines. They’re planning not to recommend them for “healthy people,” including children and pregnant women. There’s a lot of noise around the words “recommend” and “approve.” If they’re not recommended, your insurance probably won’t cover them. If they’re not even approved, you just can’t get them. Leave it to mainstream media to completely fail in their coverage. As NPR said, “With most Americans declining to get COVID shots anyway, many people are indifferent to the changes.” They even quote conservative think tanks agreeing with the decision.

Anyone who still wants a shot this fall might have to beg their doctor to prescribe one “off label” and then pay for it themselves, at $200 per shot. There’s a great deal of justified outrage over this, but the media aren’t covering it and they aren’t even mentioning the risks of Long Covid. As we know by now, everyone is at risk of long term illness, and the risk goes up each infection.

Of course, it doesn’t help the case for vaccine access when 90 percent of news outlets continue to ignore these risks…

The absence of vaccines this fall (including Covid) puts even more pressure on other mitigations like masking and testing. Unfortunately, Pfizer has stopped manufacturing Lucira, a combination test with good accuracy but a large number of complaints. Other combination tests like Healgen have hit the market, with a touted accuracy rate above 90 percent. Aptitude has also launched a Covid/flu test. It’s only available to healthcare providers now, but you can sign up for a waitlist here. CorDX offers a home test with good reviews and a high accuracy rate.

We’ve also joined the small but growing group of people using HOCl on surfaces as well as in humidifiers. Here’s an overview I wrote on HOCl, its history, how it’s made, and what evidence supports its use in humidifiers.

What else is going on?