California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency due to the “spread of Bird Flu in dairy cows.”

“On December 12, 2024, dairy cows at four Southern California dairies tested positive for Bird Flu, necessitating a shift from regional containment to statewide monitoring and response to active cases,” an emergency proclamation read.

A closer look:

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“This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak,” Newsom said in a statement, according to CBS News.

Per CBS News:

Across the US, the CDC has recorded a total of 61 human cases of bird flu across 16 states so far – with more than half of those cases, 34, being in California.

“It’s a pandemic already in birds, and what we’re trying to do is prevent it becoming a pandemic in humans,” said UC San Francisco infectious disease specialist, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong. “Right now, it’s a dead end in terms of getting into humans because it hasn’t figured out the right key to unlock the door into our bodies. But the more transmissions that occur–like in dairy cows, like in birds–the more it’s going to randomly figure out that mutant, that variant, that can cause more human-to-human transmission.”

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While not linked to any known human case, one California raw milk dairy issued a voluntary recall earlier in December after bird flu was detected in a lot. Still, health officials have long warned against consuming unpasteurized milk due to bacteria concerns.

Newsom also noted that California has already implemented an effort to combat bird flu by working with dairy and poultry farms to minimize farm worker exposure. Many of the confirmed cases of bird flu are linked to dairy and poultry workers, health officials have said.

The emergency proclamation follows public health officials declaring the first “severe case of H5N1 Bird Flu in the U.S.”

“CDC confirms first severe case of H5N1 Bird Flu in the U.S. While an investigation into the source of the infection is ongoing, it has been determined that the patient had exposure to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks,” the CDC stated.

“No person-to-person spread of H5 bird flu has been detected. This case does not change CDC’s overall assessment of the immediate risk to the public’s health from H5N1 bird flu, which remains low,” it added.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In California, 34 people have become infected with H5N1, with all but one contracting the virus from infected dairy. The outlier was a child in Alameda County; the source of that infection has not been determined. There was also a suspected case in a child from Marin County who drank raw milk known to be infected with the virus. The CDC was unable to confirm illness in that child.

The case in Louisiana is concerning to public health officials because of its severity. Federal officials would not provide details about the patient’s symptoms, deferring all inquiries to Louisiana’s Department of Public Health.

Emails and calls to that agency went unanswered.

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According to CDC officials, the patient was reportedly in close contact with sick and dead birds from a backyard flock on the patient’s property. The virus was a version of the H5N1 bird flu that researchers have labeled D1.1 and is circulating in wild birds.

The strain circulating in dairy cows is known as B3.13.

It was the D1.1 version that was detected in a Canadian teenager hospitalized with severe illness in November. The source for that patient’s infection remains unknown.

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