The current outbreak started in February 2022, infecting 163 million birds in 754 commercial and 828 backyard flocks. In the past 30 days, the virus has infected 23.33 million birds in 102 commercial and 49 backyard flocks.
In Pennsylvania, four counties - Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster and Lebanon - are under active control by the state Department of Agriculture. It has affected 2 million commercial poultry. (Lehigh County was in active control as well but has since been removed). A control zone is the infected farm and anything within a 6.2 mile radius.
When bird flu is suspected, the farm is quarantined, and the birds are tested. If infected, they are "depopulated."
Is there a concern that this can be spread to humans?. According to Kossube, the risk of transmission is low. Nationwide, 69 people have been infected by avian flu. Most of them worked with poultry or dairy cows. One person did die but was suffering from autoimmune deficiency. There is no detected instance of one human infecting another.
To avoid contagion, Kossube recommends that all eggs be cooked to at least 160 degrees and that we should only drink pasteurized milk. This would kill the virus.
Kossube predicted that the outbreak should ease during the hotter months of the year.
Obviously, bird flu is the reason for soaring egg prices, not Trump or Biden.
5 comments:
Depopulated = Killing healthy chickens.
And yet chicken is still on sale in the grocery stores
The Lehigh Valley was ground zero for the outbreak in wild bird flocks, primarily large flocks of over-wintering snow geese. Several thousand have died since December, mostly in flocks roosting overnight in quarries in both counties. The PA Game Commission and contractors were depopulating/killing geese at both sites, but the majority of birds died directly from the flu. Locally, crows and birds of prey have been found suffering or dead from the virus, too; most likely contracted as a result of feeding on infected geese.
The bird flu article was much more honest and interesting than the wee willie announcement
6:54, Two reasons for this. First, chickens raised to lay eggs are not the same type of chicken used for meat. Those are broilers. Some farms might be small enough so that layers and broilers are together, but there apparently is some separation in more commercial settings. Second, you can freeze broilers. So avian flu has had less impact on broilers but it is only a matter of time. https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/5143197-egg-prices-are-skyrocketing-why-isnt-the-cost-of-chicken-rising-too/
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