K-in-CT 😷😷😷

Well worth reading:

@yaneerbaryam @GosiaGasperoPhD Change in WHO timeline of first 4 cases In particular, first case symptom onset shifted to April 3 ↙️WHO May 8 who.int/emergencies/di… ↘️WHO May 13 who.int/emergencies/di…

It’s not just that we’re not responding fast enough — it’s also that the response is completely inadequate, the CDC has refused to answer fundamental questions repeatedly, and the guidance from CDC varies by the hour. If hantavirus were more transmissible, we’d be screwed.

@DavidSandersRep @SenOssoff So true. 😔

@SenOssoff “I really feel as if the administration is engaged in reverse alchemy, and it’s turning America’s scientific gold into lead,” says David Sanders, a sleuth and biologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. nature.com/articles/d4158…

Sen. Ossoff: This is an intentional effort to destroy the CDC.

@beansprouts_mom @Nucleocapsoid You’d think they’d be curious about that, wouldn’t you? We know so little about this virus. It would make for cheap research. These people are all under monitoring already.

@Nucleocapsoid @KinCONN I wish there was a serial testing plan during the incubation period. It feels perfomative to just test once.

#hantavirus [⚠️Is the clear reticence about false negatives/positives due to a lack of confidence in the reliability of the tests themselves? ] ➡️🇨🇦 Canada: Ontario now testing asymptomatic people for hantavirus; low-risk cases to stop isolating if negative - Ontario’s ministry of health said it is ➡️ now testing asymptomatic people with connections to a hantavirus-stricken cruise, a shift from government remarks made earlier this week, as health officials around the world grapple with the role of testing in the current effort to contain spread of the rodent-borne illness. - The province said ➡️ the three “high-risk” travellers — two who were on the cruise and one who was on the same flight as a person who has since died of hantavirus — will stay in strict isolation regardless of their result. - However, a ministry spokesperson said ➡️ the seven “low-risk” contacts can stop their recommended 45-day isolation if they test negative, while daily public health monitoring will continue. - “As an added precaution, ➡️ testing has been offered to all identified contacts, even in the absence of symptoms, to further reduce any potential risk and to support early detection,” a spokesperson for Sylvia Jones, Ontario’s health minister, said Friday. - ➡️ Nine people in Canada have been classified as “high-risk contacts” and are isolating in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, while ➡️ 26 others have been deemed “low risk.” - Public health officials have described “low-risk” contacts as air passengers who were on the same flight as someone with hantavirus, but weren’t in close proximity to them. - ➡️ The question of whether to test asymptomatic people has been raised several times over the past week, complicated by the long incubation period of the virus, and potential for symptoms to show up weeks after exposure. - Earlier this week, Jones said the ➡️ guidance from the province’s top doctor was that it wasn’t appropriate to test people showing no symptoms at the time. - Dr. Joss Reimer, Canada’s chief public health officer, also suggested ➡️ testing asymptomatic people might give a false sense of security. - ➡️ “If somebody is perhaps testing negative, but later could go on to develop hantavirus, I don’t want that individual to be taking their isolation requirements less seriously. So that’s the balance that we’re trying to strike in getting as much information as we can and is useful without giving people a false reassurance that might lead to unnecessary exposures,” Reimer said at a press briefing Friday. - ➡️ Canada has two kinds of hantavirus tests: one that detects antibodies in the blood, and a PCR test, which finds particles of the virus itself. By Hannah Alberga toronto.citynews.ca/2026/05/15/ont…

PAPRs in dairy parlors (I am in the process of getting an Optrel Swiss Air mask and Y hose to match up to my Bullard PAPR for a possible "better for milking" PAPR.) I'd also like to see the USDA include aerosols in H5N1 prevention @RickABright @HNimanFC @KinCONN @propublica

One of the VERY FIRST things done after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was to have the text of the new Constitution translated into Dutch and German, which were at the time the two largest non-English language spoken in the United States. Here's the National Archives:

Referring to avian influenza A viruses, like H5N1: --> “Conservative estimates suggest that such a pandemic could result in up to 350 million deaths globally” We're not upgrading ventilation and filtration in buildings fast enough (yes, and other things, but this is where my focus is)

the Andes virus still poses very real risks – and the response has just entered a “make or break” phase, says @mvankerkhove. Soon, it will be clear if the outbreak is going to burn out or spark a new transmission chain.

#hantavirus [ 🚨 So the luxury expedition ship MV Hondius had a ships’ DOCTOR but no Covid or flu tests aboard? Seems unrealistic, no? ⁉️] ➡️🇺🇸 American doctor who initially tested positive says further testing shows 'no evidence that I've had hantavirus' - The American doctor who was on the MV Hondius cruise ship and initially tested positive for hantavirus. - The Bend, Oregon, resident has since tested negative and was cleared to relocate to Nebraska's quarantine unit, where 15 other passengers from the cruise ship who do not have symptoms are being monitored. - "I physically feel great -- I have felt great for many, many days," Kornfeld told ABC News. "Emotionally I feel wonderful. It's nice to be negative for hantavirus." - The medical director of Nebraska's biocontainment unit, Dr. Angela Hewlett, told ABC News' Victor Oquendo,➡️ "I suspect that the initial test was a false positive." - ➡️ "If we had seen evidence of previous exposure or previous infection to hantavirus with our serology test, then that would have been a little more indicative of maybe he had had an illness and he was fortunately getting better,” Hewlett explained. "We didn't see any evidence of that and so it looks like he has not had this illness at all thus far." - Kornfeld said the initial test was taken after he came down with a flu-like illness on the ship. - ⚠️ "I got sick just a few days after the gentleman who had hantavirus got sick -- he ultimately passed away from it. And my illness certainly wasn't as severe, but ➡️ "I'm still in the incubation period. The virus may still be in me and I may develop symptoms of the virus." - - He said he is following protocol by isolating himself in Nebraska's quarantine unit. - "I will keep track of my symptoms," he said. "And if I get any symptoms, then I'll be tested. Because getting new symptoms does not mean it's hantavirus -- I could come down with another virus, like a cold or something similar." - ➡️ Kornfeld said he is weighing whether to complete the entire 42-day quarantine in Nebraska or to finish from his home in Oregon. ➡️ Some will probably stay here the entire time, some may ultimately go home," he said. - ➡️ "I'm thinking that I may eventually want to go home ... it would be very safe to send us home and then we could complete the quarantine in a much more familiar situation," he said, adding, ➡️ "everybody here is committed to completing their quarantine." By fEmily Shapiro abcnews.com/US/american-do…

You’re late to the game, CDC. Or should I say what is left of the CDC.

@Isanthropia I guess there were zero Covid or flu tests aboard the MV Hondius?

He had “ship flu,” he figures.

#hantavirus [A really excellent summary of where we are: ] ⬇️⬇️⬇️ ➡️ The Andes hantavirus ship outbreak: Lessons from a dress rehearsal - The situation now: A highly lethal virus that can transmit from person to person is potentially present in numerous countries. It’s infected 10, killed three, and left ➡️ more than 100 people quarantining in the United States, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. Has the international response been swift and adequate? Let us see: (opens in a new tab) - First, at present, there have been no cases of infection among people who were not on the MV Hondius. Second, our limited knowledge of past outbreaks in Argentina  and Chile shows that this virus can spread among people, just not so readily as SARS-CoV-2 or measles. Third, the Andes virus’s protracted inoculation period is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it means that there won’t be a rapidly evolving epidemic—new cases, if they emerge, will likely do so slowly. On the other, protracted quarantines will be difficult to maintain. And there’s uncertainty about how successful virus containment will be. - Reassuring as that might be, a hard-nosed assessment of how authorities have responded to this virus scare so far turns up some reason for concern. - Did the initial diagnosis come swiftly? ➡️ Let’s take patient one. It’s clear his death should have been investigated earlier as a death of special concern. A serious infection and respiratory symptoms in a person that had probably been in wild bird environments should raise suspicions. ➡️ He could have had, for example, avian influenza—which might have been a far more significant pandemic threat if an efficient strain for human-to-human transmission had emerged. - Were the subsequent diagnoses adequate? Yes, authorities quickly identified the type of hantavirus— Andes virus—and sequenced it. ➡️ Are diagnostics easily accessible? Not at present, which could be a problem should those quarantining now or their contacts become symptomatic. ➡️ The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not made a PCR test available, for example. - Was the response by international authorities swift? WHO rapidly developed new guidelines on how to define high-risk contacts and deal with suspected cases. It also adequately coordinated the evacuation of the MV Hondius, developing a plan for which country gets which passengers and under which conditions. ➡️ The question now is whether countries are following WHO’s guidance? - Different countries appear to be taking different precautions. - ➡️ The United Kingdom is set to release some high-risk contacts from supervised quarantines to their homes, with a suggestion for further at-home quarantine. - ➡️ The CDC, meanwhile, is advising high-risk contacts in the United States, where 18 patients have returned, to isolate at home and avoid sleeping in the same bed and using common items with other household members. But the agency is still allowing these contacts to have a continuous presence around potentially exposed people. ➡️ Household members are allowed to come and go as they please, creating a degree of risk that they might expose others to a pathogen with 40 percent mortality rate—not something you would want near you. - ➡️ At the other end of the response spectrum, in the Netherlands, even health care personnel who breached the strict protocol required there for handling patient specimens are now quarantining for six weeks at home. Six weeks of quarantine is a challenge. But so are further cases of Andes virus. - Tracing people who might have been exposed remains a major challenge. ➡️ We know that the roughly 30 people who had disembarked from the ship by April 24,  ignorant of their potential exposure to hantavirus, travelled to numerous countries. ➡️ At least one of them developed symptoms and is hospitalized in Switzerland. ➡️ Are we aware of the whereabouts and the state of health of all these individuals? Can we ensure that they have been placed in strict quarantine? [Narrator: they have not been placed in quarantine in the U.S.] - ➡️ Worryingly one person who disembarked early reportedly travelled worldwide and even visited an extreme tourism conference in Vietnam, Jacqueline Sweet, an investigative journalist, reported. Imagine if this individual had ignored early symptoms and had infected other conference participants who could then return at their countries and develop symptoms weeks later. - A cornerstone of outbreak containment needs to be clear public health communication. On this score, official communication on the hantavirus raises eyebrows. ➡️ The WHO head in Tenerife, for example, an island territory of Spain, disappointingly made excuses for some of the evacuees not wearing an N95 masks, saying that they might be uncomfortable for the elderly. - N95 masks, as we know from COVID, are an excellent form of first-line personal protective equipment (PPE) against a pathogen transmitting from person to person through the air. And many will recall that a lack of official clarity on whether SARS-CoV-2 was airborne or what kind of mask was effective against it during the early stages of the COVID pandemic helped sow confusion about PPE that likely hampered a rational public health response. - A counter argument would be that this disease is just not that transmissible. Extreme precaution may not be necessary. Data from the South American outbreaks published asks us to remain ambivalent on the question: Secondary cases in health care personnel have not been a consistent feature of these outbreaks, and transmission seems to occur in closed-space social gatherings or in households. But ➡️ some of these outbreaks included transmission between individuals that were not in close contact. - ➡️ In the2018-2019 outbreak in Epuyen, Argentina, ➡️ the median reproduction number, how many people an infected person infects, was ➡️ 2.12 before isolation measures were implemented. Six of the 34 cases were infected by aerosol/droplets, i.e., either through larger droplets that quickly fall to the ground or small particles that can stay airborne longer. - There are many aspects of Andes virus transmission that remain unknown: How close does contact have to be for the virus to jump from one person to another? Is there the potential for pre-symptomatic transmission? —We do know from another cluster of human-to-human transmission in Argentina that transmission is more efficient in the early “prodromal” phase of the disease, when an exposed individual may downplay their symptoms and not seek medical advice or isolate. Are there asymptomatic infections? It is imperative to have all passengers and crew of MV Hondius tested for antibodies to the virus, too. Do secretions in the environment remain infectious when they come from an infected human, as they do when they come from animals? Can the virus survive inside the human body for months (in semen for example, where viral genomes could be traced even seven years after infection)?We do know from another cluster of human-to-human transmission in Argentina that transmission is more efficient in the early “prodromal” phase of the disease, when an exposed individual may downplay their symptoms and not seek medical advice or isolate. Are there asymptomatic infections? It is imperative to have all passengers and crew of MV Hondius tested for antibodies to the virus, too. Do secretions in the environment remain infectious when they come from an infected human, as they do when they come from animals? Can the virus survive inside the human body for months (in semen for example, where viral genomes could be traced even seven years after infection)?—We do know from another cluster of human-to-human transmission in Argentina that transmission is more efficient in the early “prodromal” phase of the disease, when an exposed individual may downplay their symptoms and not seek medical advice or isolate. Are there asymptomatic infections? It is imperative to have all passengers and crew of MV Hondius tested for antibodies to the virus, too. Do secretions in the environment remain infectious when they come from an infected human, as they do when they come from animals? Can the virus survive inside the human body for months (in semen for example, where viral genomes could be traced even seven years after infection)? - We do know from another cluster of human-to-human transmission in Argentina that ➡️ we do know from another cluster of human-to-human transmission in Argentina that ➡️ transmission is more efficient in the early “prodromal” phase of the disease, when an exposed individual may downplay their symptoms and not seek medical advice or isolate. - ➡️ Are there asymptomatic infections? 🚨It is imperative to have all passengers and crew of MV Hondius tested for antibodies to the virus, too. - ⚠️ Do secretions in the environment remain infectious when they come from an infected human, as they do when they come from animals? Can the virus survive inside the human body for months (in semen for example, where viral genomes could be traced even seven years after infection)? - There are no vaccines available for Andes virus, nor any proven treatment, apart from supportive measures. Though a wider crisis seems unlikely with this pathogen, stopping a hantavirus outbreak or that of another pathogen will require accurate scientific information. Hantavirus disinformation has already emerged, with online posts linking its emergence to mRNA COVID vaccines, for example, or advocating ivermectin as a treatment. This is unavoidable.➡️ What is avoidable though is the inconsistency in the public messaging we’ve seen from various authorities—there’s a difference between not wanting to fear monger and being complacent. By Georgios Pappas thebulletin.org/2026/05/the-an…

“If it had turned out to be a zoonotic influenza, and we already knew there were three cases epidemiologically linked … that would have been a bit more concerning.” telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

New reporting reveals that Xi Jinping plans to send Trump rose seeds following a tour of Xi's rose garden in Beijing. Trump demolished the White House Rose Garden to make space for a concrete slab earlier in his term.

🚨 BREAKING: The White House said Xi agreed the Strait of Hormuz must stay demilitarized and that China opposes any “toll” by Iran. China’s own readout of the same meeting said something different. The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s official summary of the Trump-Xi summit made no mention of Iran. None. No mention of the Strait of Hormuz. None. China publicly said it “supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty.” And Chinese ships are already moving through the Strait, under Iranian permits. A Chinese supertanker crossed Wednesday. Iran’s state media reports about 30 vessels have transited since. The Trump administration’s blockade redirected 70 ships in the same window. So which readout is real? Two governments. One meeting. Two completely different stories. The White House is telling Americans Xi is on our side. China is telling Iran the opposite. Both can’t be true. Who is Trump lying to — us, or himself?

DRC #Ebola outbreak now extends to Uganda; tracing underway “The ministry said the case ‌was ⁠an imported infection from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ⁠patient died in intensive care on ⁠May 14 after ⁠developing hemorrhagic symptoms.” reuters.com/business/healt…

For God’s sake, MARGIN LOANS now make up 5% of our GDP. This is going to be the largest market collapse of my entire career.