Updated Display Format On USDA Wild Bird Site
#18,808
Late yesterday Sharon Sanders of FluTrackers notified me of an abrupt change to the USDA's wild Wild Bird HPAI Dashboard (screenshot above), which no longer displays critical data like the Date detected, HPAI Subtype, Bird Species, WOAH Classification and Sampling Method.
All critical data which has been readily available on their site since 2022 (see screen shot below (h/t FluTrackers)).
Obviously, with the recent spread of HPAI H5N5 in both Europe and Canada, and the recent reports of H5N9 in California, the removal of subtype data in this new format is of particular concern.
Species information can also provide clues as to how the virus is spreading, and whether non-avian species are involved. It could also provide early warning to pet owners or bird lovers as to what species are currently at greater risk of carrying the virus.
I downloaded the 1.5 Megabyte CSV (spreadsheet) file to see if the data was still being maintained, but somehow hidden from the dashboard display, and found this:
A 256 character string of `#' has been added to 6 (of 13,745) line items in the Date Detected field, effectively shoving the `missing data' far enough to the right to no longer display on the dashboard.
The good news is, the data is still being accumulated. But you have to scroll several screens to the right to find it.
If you are accustomed to working with spreadsheets, you can reduce that wide 256 character column (highlighted in blue) down to 12 characters and view each entry on a single screen.
Of course, it requires downloading, and manually manipulating a massive CSV file every time you want an update.
At least until they decide to make another change to the format.
I've no idea why someone decided that removing this data from USDA's dashboard (while technically still making it available) was a good idea. But this seems to be part of a growing trend to reduce the flow information being released on HPAI around the world.
The CDC's last H5N1 News & Spotlight update was May 2nd (Results of Influenza Risk Assessment Tool), while three weeks ago the CDC announced they would scale back updates on H5N1 bird flu.
.
Last March, in Nature: Lengthy Delays in H5N1 Genome Submissions to GISAID, we learned that many H5 sequences linger for months before before being submitted to GISAID. Sometimes for a year or longer.
Admittedly, there may be some short-term political or economic gains from pretending that all is well, and that HPAI is under control.
But all of that vanishes the moment one of these zoonotic viruses finally cracks the code, and beings to transmit easily among humans.