this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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When H5N1 avian influenza started spreading among dairy cattle across the U.S. this year, regulators warned against consuming unpasteurized milk. What happened? Raw milk sales went up.

Distributors of this unsafe-for-human-consumption product deny H5N1—which has the potential to sicken millions of people—is a danger. Dairy farmers decline to allow disease detectives onto their properties.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So, when this finally jumps species, will we continue the tradition of naming a virus after its origin?

MAGA Influenza or maybe the Florida Flu?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 months ago (3 children)
  • Flyover Flu
  • Farmer's Flu
  • Milk Malady
  • MAGA Malady
  • Cow Contamination
  • Cow's Cough
  • Dairy Disease
  • Bird's Blight
  • Flying Fever
  • Pigeon Pestilence
  • Pigeon Plague

That's enough alliteration for today

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The White Death

The Lactonic Plague

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Culling of the Contrarians

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago

Dipshit Disease.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

Texas Moo Flu

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Nah, we'll do like we did with the Spanish flu where we put our heads in the sand about a new flu strain from a farm in Kansas and name it after the first place to publicly acknowledge it exists.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I just bought 10 80-packs of toilet paper. $426.50. I should be fine now.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago (1 children)

See you on ebay in 6 months

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You can't wipe your ass with jealousy and spite.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don't tempt me with a good time

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

He said spite, not spit

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (17 children)

I got a shattaf (handheld bidet sprayer) at the start of the last pandemic. It’s incredible. It’s easy to install for a renter, and is so much cleaner than tp. Only downside is it’s cold water unless you run a second line from your sink’s hot water line.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I always wanted to try one of those things, but I don't want to install one. I also want one with a remote control that has a range of at least 7 yards.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s super easy to install.

Close the water feed valve, flush the toilet, disconnect the feed line from the tank, connect the Y adapter valve to the tank, reconnect the feed line, open the water valve.

It took me ~15 minutes to install and had a towel’s worth of clean water spillage to clean up.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago (2 children)

“American” contrariness, scientificametican? Really? You sure you can’t narrow it down more than everyone who’s an American?

Not even a little bit?

Well, then fuck you. Because we both know exactly who you’re talking about.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, Americans. As much as i disagree with Republicans on things, they're still Americans.

Our educational system, our economic and our social systems have failed them and led them to unscientific contrary positions.

We need to find ways to bridge that gap and stop things like this without it being a political issue.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We need to find ways to bridge that gap and stop things like this without it being a political issue.

When the problem is political in nature I really don't see how it'd be beneficial to pretend like it's not

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (3 children)

If people understood germ theory, it wouldn't be an issue. Instead, we spend a lot of time in high school biology on hydras, for example. Hydras are cool, reproduction by budding is weird, but maybe that time would have been better spent on some history of plagues and their impact on society?

With better education half our population would not be so easily manipulated into bad choices.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Instead, we spend a lot of time in high school biology on hydras ... maybe that time would have been better spent on some history of plagues

I think there's a different class that might be better suited to discussing past plagues lol

On a serious note, I get what you mean. I think classes need to be more integrated on their lessons, so like the science class is discussing the mechanics of how diseases reproduce at the same time history class is covering past epidemics, while the social studies class covers how systemic injustice worsened epidemics for the poor and minorities.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Well, I don't know. Finland has – or rather had until very recently, thanks to conservatives doing what they always do – one of the best education systems in the world and our conservatives were just about as easily manipulated into idiotic shit during COVID.

I think the reality of the matter is that a huge chunk of the population is simply too stupid to be able to function in a modern, complex society and no amount of education can fix them.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The best part about the bird flu in humans is that it is not airborne. And human to human transmission is, at the moment, a rare occurrence. So only the people who refuse to take precautions should be impacted.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So only the people who refuse to take precautions should be impacted.

Only if transmission between those people doesn't result in a mutation that turns it airborne. That's not an "if" I'd personally like to risk. To assume it will only affect those who don't take precaution is foolish at best and cruelly disingenuous at worst.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

And there's a frankly scarily high likelihood that it's not an "if" but a "when" – some forecasters like the ALERT team, who are usually fairly accurate, give H5N1 turning into a pandemic about a 25% chance in the coming decade, which would generally mean it'd successfully specialized for infecting human lung tissues.

If or when that pandemic does happen, there's a chance it'd be extremely bad. Estimates for the infection fatality rate (IFR) range anywhere from 1 to 80%, eg. this article estimates 14 – 33%, but this article estimates 30 – 80% for the current strains. Needless to say that even a 10% fatality rate would be disastrous, something like 20x – 50x worse than COVID. Note that the IFR is distinct from the case fatality rate (CFR) which is currently something like 50% – 80%, but those are only the cases we know of and the ones bad enough to end up in hospital, but based on eg. wastewater studies the number of total infected is probably a lot higher than the cases we've seen so far.

Some estimates for eg the 1918 pandemic put its IFR at around 2% but some studies have pointed out it's likely that that's an underestimate, and eg. the ALERT team gives it a ~60% chance that the IFR for H5N1 would be ≥10%. Not letting this thing turn into a pandemic should be a top priority for health authorities, but nobody seems to be willing to actually take the steps needed, such as shutting down mink farms here in Finland – our extremist right-wing government is instead paying subsidies to a dying industry that centers around animal torture even though it's a prime zoonosis candidate. And let's not forget that H5N1 is just one of the highly pathogenic avian influenzas going around right now, although it is by far the most pressing one at the moment.

Conservatives will always prioritize money over lives. The only consolation I have is that even though they might still lead us to potentially even hundreds of millions of needless deaths if/when this does turn into a pandemic, they'll be the ones refusing to get vaccinated and therefore more likely to die.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Joke's on them, I never stopped being a paranoid shut-in from the last pandemic.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

You waited for the pandemic? Either way, welcome to this way of life.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Can we please put some kindergarten nannies in charge of that nation…?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've seen some freaking health professionals go full anti-mask and anti-vax. Like one of my friends is an RN and she went full Facebook Karen.

You can't fix stupid.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah covid revealed there are a LOT of registered nurses i do not want involved in my health care.

Like, a lot

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've seen the same here in Finland too. What is it with nurses going off the reich wing anti-vax / anti-mask deep end?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

That is genuinely freaky. I mean they should know better. Like way better.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I don't think you understand just how stupid my fellow country members are. We literally say "hey to prevent getting yourself and others sick, you should do these steps" making it a suggestion of reasonable things.

the response "my freedoms are being trampled". I fucking wish they actually were.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

republiQans. We’re talking about republiQans.

(Okay, fine and also some nazis, Qultists, some facebook boomers, a fair few Libertarians, and some woowoo newager people.)

But, look, just say republiQans and have done with it. “Americans” is more than too general, it’s an absolute cop-out.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

“Contrariness”?

Just call it mulish obstinacy to be kind, willful stupidity to be real.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

On the bright side we will never see a republican president ever again

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