More H5N1 bird flu in cats

No good news today, sorry.

Now been almost 1,000 detections of bird flu in US dairy herds. This is a lot. And given that in Nevada at least two of those have been not of the usual B3.13 genotype but the D1.1 genotype from wild birds—which has been the cause of more severe illness in people—this is Not Good.Poultry flocks all over the country are falling to infection. Expect the price of eggs to keep going up. China reports two more H9N2 avian flu infections in humans—the illnesses so far have been mild H5N1 D1.1 is spreading like wildfire among wild birds—at least 50 unrelated detections including gulls, geese, ducks, birds of prey—and spring migration is coming. It’s going to get worse. More cats dying of bird flu—including one feral cat in California. This is very Not Good News—no one knows how it was infected. Watch your cats closely, please. Especially as birds begin their spring migration.

I’m getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about this. Do please take precautions. And you might want to stock up on eggs.