#not trying to be allarmist but forcing health agenices to shut up at all is bad

[lastoneout]

Looks like those of us in the US are already going to have to fly blind on bird flu for a while.

It is only until the 1st and it claims that exceptions will be made for genuine emergencies but ngl given all I know from following this for a year and remember from COVID I don't trust the new people in charge to be able to recognize when the situation is actually serious or not, and I have a bad feeling that we won't know when it goes H2H(which everything Trump is doing and has said he'll do means this is truly only a matter of time right now, it's not if, it's when) and will have to rely on news from other countries to get info on the situation.

If you have stopped masking, now is the time to at the very least start stocking up, and grab some flu tests and covid tests if you can. Also please, I am begging you all, if you can get the latest COVID booster and flu shot do it NOW while you still can. If the COVID vax side effects bother you try the Novavax version, I had it and it didn't cause any adverse side effects. Costco seems to have them, where I am anyway, and you don't need a membership to use the pharmacy. Also you can still self-attest to being high risk which gets you on the 6month pattern instead of the yearly one, so if you had your last one within a year want to top off, do it now before things get scary.

I would also advise doing what you can to get the qualifying people in your life the RSV vaccine. One of the key things we're worried about with H5N1/HPAI is concurrent infections, if someone gets sick with H5N1 and another illness like the seasonal flu it seriously increases the chances of the virus reshuffling with the other one and setting it up to be H2H. You want to minimize the chance of you being the test tube that experiment happes in, so mask if you can and get your shots.

I truly do think those of us in the US are about to be on our own with this. I do not trust this new administration to stop here. You gotta take care of yourselves and your families, friends, and communities.

Edit: ALSO STOP DRINKING RAW MILK AND BRING YOUR FUCKIN' CATS INSIDE FFS