#19,393
In just 3 weeks the State of Washington has gone from never reporting H5N1 in dairy cattle, to reporting 30 infected herds. Twelve days ago they also reported a (mildly) infected dairy worker was recovering at home.
Thus far, we've no information on how the virus (identified as B3.13) is spreading from farm to farm.
While Washington State is the current hotspot for reported H5N1 in dairy cattle, over the past month two other states - Texas and Kansas - have reported outbreaks.
As we discussed yesterday in Preprint: Why Americans Choose Raw Milk: Evidence from a National Quantitative Survey - while Washington State warns against the consumption of raw milk, it also allows its sale in grocery stores.
Hopefully people are paying attention, not only to these outbreaks, but to the labels on the milk and milk-products they buy and consume.