Genomic analysis suggests that the outbreak probably began in December or January, but a shortage of data is hampering efforts to pin down the source.
A strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza has been silently spreading in US cattle for months, according to preliminary analysis of genomic data. The outbreak is likely to have begun when the virus jumped from an infected bird into a cow, probably around late December or early January. This implies a protracted, undetected spread of the virus — suggesting that more cattle across the United States, and even in neighbouring regions, could have been infected with avian influenza than currently reported.
The virus spreads mostly asymptomatically. If the cows don't get sick and their milk production doesn't decrease suddenly nobody starts testing for viruses.
The risk of transmission from cows to humans is considered low, as the virus requires a large dose of virus to infect humans. Additionally, the virus is not easily spread through milk or other dairy products, as it is inactivated by pasteurization.
this was my concern, too. Especially after reading about how the WHO didn't want to say covid was airborne because it would be hard to deal with or something so they stuck to a completely unsupported droplet theory to basically protect businesses from having to provide better ventilation
Yep, same. Doctor hassled me for wearing a mask in a health clinic. Told me it was gonna be fine. Told her Trump said the same thing, so we were definitely fucked. She didn't like that.
These cows were fed boiling distillery waste, often leaving the cows with rotting teeth and other maladies. The milk drawn from the cows was routinely adulterated with water, rotten eggs, flour, burnt sugar and other adulterants with the finished product then marketed falsely as "pure country milk"