Jun 20, 2024

Bird Flu Update: signposts of the coming rollout

Kit Knightly

Two days ago we published my latest bird flu article, “How (and why) Bird Flu is About to Enter the “Mass Testing” Phase”.

Less than 12 hours later Salon published a 3000-word article about bird flu, which dedicates about 2000 of those words to “experts” talking about how we’re not testing enough [emphasis added]:

…experts have said that cases are likely flying under the radar. So far this year, three Americans have been infected by H5N1 viruses that started in cows, and all of them recovered, but some experts say that patients may be avoiding doctors or refusing tests”
[…]
most experts expressed a concern that the lack of data and surveillance is a major issue. Jetelina said the government isn’t doing “even close to enough” testing on animals and humans.
[…]
“Testing still seems somewhat random and voluntary. We should be doing more — both in cattle and humans,”
[…]
There is also no legal requirement to report test results
[…]
Rasmussen said part of the issue with testing is that it requires a collaboration between multiple state and local agencies, as well as the USDA and CDC, which don’t always cooperate. It also requires participation and consent from the affected farms.
[…]
“As a result it’s hard to know how much testing has been done and how much will be done going forward,” Rasmussen said. “It can differ a lot by jurisdiction.”

Poulsen elaborated and said there are too many “legal and political barriers” to testing

The nascent narrative is clear – “we need to run more tests, and we need new rules to enforce mandatory testing, we need to cut through agency/state jurisdiction with some new federal law”.

This message – or some variation of it – has been repeated in half a dozen more articles since we published our piece just two days ago.

That includes the Guardian (obviously) and the World Socialist Website, who continue their Covid-era policy of abandoning any pretense of being an “independent” media outlet and repeating (or even exaggerating) mainstream claims to further their own political agenda.

But the Salon article has more than just some predictable agenda talking points, it also has some (accidentally) revealing insights into potential future developments [again emphasis added]:

“States that are testing more are likely to report more cases.”
[…]
“I would prefer to see more testing of farm workers and milk…I would like to see serology to see if workers were infected asymptomatically.
[…]
He added there is no “CLIA requirement for animal testing,” referring to federal lab standards and private labs can do all the testing they want.
[…]
Jetelina said that even at-home flu tests will likely pick up H5N1 because it’s closely related to influenza A
[…]
“The big challenge will be fall, as we will not be able to differentiate between [seasonal] flu and H5 unless we have a more specific test,”

To be clear, these experts admit in this article:

The more you test the more cases you find
Animal testing is not subject to lab standards
Many of those “missed” human cases will be “asymptomatic infections”
At-home tests can’t differentiate between “bird flu” and common seasonal flu
…which means, when flu season starts in the fall, reported “bird flu” cases may rise sharply

Remember this, because this is exactly the kind of information that will get memory-holed when/if the new pandemic narrative takes off in earnest.

In the meantime, let’s ask a simple question:

What happens when you start to legally enforce widespread testing to find asymptomatic cases using at-home tests that can’t differentiate between your new “pandemic” and ‘seasonal flu’?

Covid 2: Electric Boogaloo, that’s what happens.

Anyway, here’s hoping I don’t have to use the words “bird flu” again for a while.

….Oh, one more thing, did you know climate change is making bird flu worse?

What else can you do but laugh at this point?