Despite RFK Jr canceling the usual meeting to decide on the upcoming influenza vaccine the FDA has issued recommendations.
#vaccines #Influenza

https://www.empr.com/news/fda-makes-recommendations-for-2025-2026-influenza-vaccines/

296 people dead of influenza in th 2024-2025 season so far in Washington State:

https://universeodon.com/@WADeptHealth/114196113414556413

"Why Are People Wearing Masks In 2025?"https://misfitmentalhealth.substack.com/p/why-are-people-wearing-masks-in-2025 [misfitmentalhealth.substack.com] This is so good.

It's not short - but that's part of the point.

There are SO many good reasons to mask and SO much evidence.

https://misfitmentalhealth.substack.com/p/why-are-people-wearing-masks-in-2025 [misfitmentalhealth.substack.com]

h/t @ducky

We thank the World Health Organization for doing its job when the United States government is failing to.

QT WHO @WHO
205 February 28

New recommendations for the viral composition of #influenza vaccines for the 2025-2026 northern hemisphere flu season https://www.who.int/news/item/28-02-2025-recommendations-announced-for-influenza-vaccine-composition-for-the-2025-2026-northern-hemisphere-influenza-season

https://bsky.app/profile/who.int/post/3ljbgwp5wy22s

AP: "This year’s harsh flu season – the most intense in 15 years – has federal health officials trying to understand if it sparked an increase in a rare but life-threatening brain complication in children.... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 19,000 people have died from the flu so far this winter, including 86 children. Thursday, the CDC reported at least nine of those children experienced brain complications, and it has asked state health departments"...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/harsh-flu-season-raises-concern-among-health-officials-about-pediatric-brain-complications

It looks like RFK Jr has a plan to see more deaths next winter: F.D.A. Cancels Meeting of Vaccine Experts Scheduled to Advise on Flu Shots.
#Influenza #antivaxxers https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/us/politics/fda-flu-vaccine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0E4.bmSu.un6C5w8iNBQo

CBS News: "Bird flu has been detected in rats for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed Wednesday.

Four black rats were confirmed to have H5N1 avian flu in late January in Riverside County, California, where two recent poultry outbreaks were reported, the agency said. "
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-in-rats/

CBS News: For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, more people in the U.S. died of influenza than from COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 25, according to weekly figures published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flu-deaths-surpass-covid-for-first-time-since-pandemic-started/
#covid19 #influenza #flu #death #health #healthcare

The H5N1 portion of @ducky 's roundup is going to make a lot of Cassandras tense up grimly:

"the US CDC looked at the blood of 150 cow veterinarians in 46 states and found that 3 of them (2%) had H5N1 antibodies in their blood.
None of them had known they had been infected.
Only one of them had contact with a known infected herd.
One of them only worked in two states that have had no known infected herds.
To spell it out: there were H5N1 infections that nobody knew about.

The vets reported using gloves and clothing covers, but not masks or goggles"

In Nevada,
"in a second dairy herd located close to the confirmed D1.1-infected one, they found a partial sequence consistent with D1.1;
both the farm with confirm D1.1 and the one with the partial match reported large bird die-offs nearby;
they saw a genetic mutation – a change of PB2 D701N, commonly associated with mammalian adaptation and which they have never seen in birds — in four separate dairy cows they looked at."

In my opinion: it could peter out. But has it? Or have counts of infections of herds and humans gone up? If this is early in an exponential upramp, can the coefficient even be guessed at, when what amounts to initiating events (mutations facilitating mammalian and human spread) are stochastic?

citations and more papers sumarized at https://covidbc.webfoot.com/2025/02/15/2025-02-15-general/

good morning from #NYC and a reminder that, given we are the center of the traveling world, with #measles and #birdFlu we have now 5 pandemics and 2 epidemics to deal with here in the Big Apple:

#COVID19
#rotovirus
#norovirus
#influenza
bird flu (#H1N1)
measles
#mpox

so please, fight #MAGA #eugenics and #MaskUp
https://writing.exchange/@davepolaschek/114007996754324445

ABC News: CDC reports highest flu levels nationwide in 15 years https://abcnews.go.com/Health/video/cdc-reports-highest-flu-levels-nationwide-15-years-118669015 #flu #publichealth #health #influenza

US Flu cases most intense in 15 years. Colorado and Aurora see spikes, too

“Positivity” test results among about 20 wastewater collection systems across the state show a 24% increase over results from one week ago

https://sentinelcolorado.com/metro/us-flu-cases-most-intense-in-15-years-colorado-and-aurora-see-spikes-too/

I follow a number of professional epidemiologists, Caitlin Rivers is one of my favorites, and for the first time in the years I've been following her, she sent out a special bulletin:
Flu activity increases again, not seen since 2002

https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinrivers/p/flu-activity-increases-again?r=1v53f1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Dänische Vergleichsstudie: Corona gefährlicher als Grippe

Dänische Forscher raten Risikogruppen weiterhin dazu, sich gegen Corona impfen zu lassen. Die Auswertung von Daten zwischen Mai 2022 und Juni 2024 belegt demnach: Das Coronavirus bleibt das schwerste Gesundheitsrisiko. Von A. Kegel.

https://www.tagesschau.de/wissen/gesundheit/corona-grippe-gefahr-100.html?at_medium=mastodon&at_campaign=tagesschau.de

Meine Station ist zur Seuchenhölle zwischen #Influenza und #Norovirus geworden. Zwei der drei Pflegekräfte mit einem problematischen Verhältnis zu Masken sind mit Brechdurchfall ausgefallen.

Station von der Krankenhaushygiene gesperrt, während die Notfallaufnahme übergeht.

Die Notfallaufnahmen sollte man jetzt sowieso noch mehr als sonst nur dann aufsuchen, wenn es wirklich notwendig ist.