In a survey last month, which captured data from 54 percent of affected farms at the time, more than 60 percent of farmers said they continued to move cattle off their infected farms after the onset of clinical signs of infection in their animals.
There are farm workers that work next to infected animals every day in the US, right now, in many states. Sometimes they get bird flu. Just a handful of times that we know of, so far, which probably means it’s happened a decent amount more than that.
The official guidance is “try not to get any of the fluids you are coming in contact with on you or anything, that might be really bad, good luck.”
It’s not a great strategy overall, in my opinion, to be honest.
I agree. I’m also worried about the lack of incentives for testing. Currently you get $75 for being tested. That’s fine, but they should get more if they test positive. They will lose more money from that from missed work time, they could even lose their job after a positive test. So many refuse. We don’t have a complete picture of what’s happening right now with the lack of testing participation.
Oh for fucks sake.
There are farm workers that work next to infected animals every day in the US, right now, in many states. Sometimes they get bird flu. Just a handful of times that we know of, so far, which probably means it’s happened a decent amount more than that.
The official guidance is “try not to get any of the fluids you are coming in contact with on you or anything, that might be really bad, good luck.”
It’s not a great strategy overall, in my opinion, to be honest.
I agree. I’m also worried about the lack of incentives for testing. Currently you get $75 for being tested. That’s fine, but they should get more if they test positive. They will lose more money from that from missed work time, they could even lose their job after a positive test. So many refuse. We don’t have a complete picture of what’s happening right now with the lack of testing participation.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/05/26/bird-flu-spreading-dairy-farm-workers-but-not-testing/73842450007/
Or we could even have something like nationwide paid sick leave and none of this would be an issue. But no, that would be crazy.
Also, many of these farm workers are likely undocumented immigrants, further complicating things.
Getting bird flu as an ag worker should be a worker’s comp claim.
“Should is a fucking lie – it might be what oughta be, but it ain’t what is.” -Lenny Bruce
And they refuse to give those workers protective gear too.