I recently heard about two people who were discussing our Feb. 21 report on the spread of avian influenza among birds and cows, and to humans in close contact with them. One reader said the article made her less worried. The other said it made her more worried.
The next day, my journalism students at Marist University asked what, exactly, was going on with this bird-flu thing. I took questions for 20 minutes. After class, someone asked me on social media if bird feeders are safe. I figured it might be helpful to write about how I’m changing my own behavior in response to the wave of avian influenza and make recommendations.
In the short term, I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s true that the H5N1 virus has mutated in the past year and is spreading in mammals. That’s worrisome, to say the least. But the virus still hasn’t gained the ability to spread person-to-person. The more we can keep the virus out of humans, the less chance it will be able to do that. So far, no one in New York has been infected. After a high-profile case that shut down a Long Island duck farm, there hasn’t been another outbreak on a commercial farm in New York. The monitoring and detection systems throughout the state appear to be working.
On that news, I’ve stopped researching the history of zoonotic diseases in my spare time — instead, I’m looking into how polluted America was before the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Unless you keep chickens in your yard or work on a farm, there’s not a lot to do, although some precautions are still prudent:
- Heat kills the H5N1 virus. If you don’t have a fast and accurate digital meat thermometer, it will be $12 well spent. Make sure any chicken you’re cooking reaches at least 165 degrees, ground beef and sausage hits 160 degrees and all other beef hits 145 degrees after resting for three minutes. Cooked egg dishes like quiches should reach 160 degrees. Give runny yolks a miss for the time being.
- Louis Pasteur did not suck out the saliva from the mouth of a rabid dog so that you could drink raw milk. Pasteurization is your friend. Neither you nor your pets should be eating raw meat or drinking raw milk.
- Cats are particularly vulnerable to H5N1. Keep them indoors. If your cats like time outside, they will not be happy. But the mortality rate for infected cats is high and their deaths are painful and horrific.
- During a recent Q&A session with Kevin Hynes, the wildlife health program leader for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, I asked about bird feeders. He said that, so far, songbirds don’t appear to be affected by avian influenza. As long as your feeders don’t attract geese or ducks, it’s OK to leave them up.
- Don’t get goose poop on your shoes. This can be hard if you spend any amount of time at Long Dock Park in Beacon. If you do step in it, wash off your shoes before you go inside.
My long-term outlook is much less optimistic. It’s not because I think H5N1 is on the verge of evolving. But if it does, I don’t have faith in our current institutions to help us through another pandemic.
You remember what those first few weeks of COVID were like. People took care of one another, sewed masks, delivered food and worked heroically long and dangerous shifts at hospitals, clinics, supermarkets and drugstores. But once the outrage merchants began to exploit the crisis, people were getting shot for wearing masks or harassed for recommending vaccines. The president suggested injecting bleach. It was all bad.
Now, here we are again. The same president is gutting scientific research. A measles outbreak is sweeping through Texas. One of the most notorious spreaders of conspiracy theories about vaccines, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is head of the Department of Health and Human Services. This week, he suggested people with measles should take more vitamin A and cod liver oil. Time is a flat circle.
My final recommendation, as you’re reflecting on March 2020, is to recall what worked and what didn’t. If you had to set up caretaking networks at a moment’s notice, could it be done? Do you have the capacity to join the local volunteer networks that are already feeding the hungry and checking in on the elderly?
With a new pandemic, those networks will be the first line of defense. The best thing we can do is shore them up now.
