COVID-19 Coronavirus, HPAI H5N1 Avian Flu, Measles and other virus UK and World News Update 16th May 2025
Reporter: "You just announced a new nominee for US Surgeon General who never finished her residency, and is not a practicing physician. So can you explain why you picked her to be America's top doctor?"
Trump: "Because Bobby thought she was fantastic" ... "I don't know her."
Awesome reasoning.
Dr Casey Means isn't actually licensed to practise medicine, and is currently an online 'wellness influencer'. (I can't understand why Joe Wicks didn't give it a go, he was super popular with his online PE lessons during lockdown.)
In other news, RFK Jr. has (under direct questioning) announced Matthew Buzzelli (a lawyer with almost no public health or medical experience) is the Acting Director of the US CDC.
Anyone nominated to stand as permanent CDC Director can't be Acting Director, so on 24th March, previous Acting Director Dr. Susan Monarez stood down, after being nominated by Trump.
Mr Buzzelli hasn't exactly been performing his duties, as he's responsible for signing off vaccines and other policies, and communications with the public, some of which have been in limbo since March or April... (I dunno, is this also news to him? His name isn't even on the CDC website...)
"The UK had a real opportunity to control spread with effective contact tracing but missed it - not once, but repeatedly over the pandemic."
Christina Pagel, IndieSAGE
The UK COVID inquiry has begun public hearings, and they've been discussing the debacle which was Test & Trace. We didn't move quickly enough. We didn't contact trace with enough speed and weren't ready with enough tests for all suspected cases. If we moved quicker, we'd have had far fewer early cases and we might even have avoided lockdown, or at least made it much shorter.
The UK Government ignored offers of help from NHS and University labs, and didn't use the skilled personnel they had (community nurses and others already do contact tracing), or other systems put in place rapidly and available to us.
It's true. From where I was sitting it looked like they dithered about trying to make money and/or collect data at the expense of everything else. It was a frustrating and ultimately very costly time.
The General Secretary of the UK Royal College of Nursing, Professor Nicola Ranger (and boy what a formidable human being! She looks like a person who gets what they want), says that nurses pay has dropped 25% in real terms over the past 15 years, and they want it restored. She warns in The Guardian that with experienced nurses leaving in droves, and fewer recruits joining the profession, Wes Streeting is going to really struggle to increase numbers or retain staff without decent pay. She also points out that if all nurses refused to work for just 1 hour, the NHS would be in chaos.
Nurses don't just slap on a pinny and get stuck in, they have a degree, extra qualifications, and years of specialised training. We need nurses.
Scotland have already offered NHS nurses an 8% pay rise over 2 years, England has offered 2.8% for this year. Strike action may be on the cards this Summer.
While we're on Nurses, the title "Nurse" is to be protected in the UK, to prevent unqualified people or those who have been struck off using it. Currently anyone can call themselves Nurse, but very shortly you'll only be able to use it if you are actually a qualified nurse registered with the National Medical Council, or as legitimate part of your title if you work as a Veterinary Nurse, Nursery Nurse or Dental Nurse.
Meanwhile an NHS Providers survey of NHS Trust leaders (56% of English trusts responded) found 37% are cutting clinical roles and 40% are considering it, just to be able to balance the books. 90% are cutting services or considering it.
Although they felt 'patient experience' was at most risk of being impacted, 94% of respondents say the cuts will also have a negative impact on staff wellbeing. We don't have enough staff as it is...
I tell you how to balance the books Wes and Keir, you have x number of sick people who can't function normally and need financial support. You make them better, decrease spending on benefits, increase productivity, national and personal income, and spending. It's not "balancing books" as much as raising funding to meet demand in order to keep your population as healthy as possible.
What exactly is more important? Without health you have nothing.
"It appears Sec. Kennedy is getting ready to over-ride vaccine policy experts & scrub Covid shot recommendations for children, teens & pregnant people. Having a HHS secretary reset vaccine policy without hearings or expert advice is unprecedented."
Helen Branswell, STAT News.
The US ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) made the recommendations last month. They are due to meet again in June, but it seems RFK Jr is not expected to wait for that meeting. He has also questioned recommendations to use a new Meningitis vaccine and widening use of the RSV vaccine.
In related news, COVID is not good for pregnant people. We have known this all along, but a recent study has shown yet again that it isn't good for their unborn infants either. The results suggest that COVID infection before or during pregnancy may increase your risk of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and preterm birth (premature babies). That risk is still low, so please don't panic! However, as so many people regularly catch COVID, it must be evident to those caring for pregnant people, and possibly early years education - where gestational age is taken into account for children reaching developmental milestones.
Researchers in Quebec, Canada, have questioned healthcare workers (HCWs) about Long COVID and found they were 2-3 times more likely to get it with their first infection, than with subsequent infections. That's not unexpected, I think we can all see that pattern in people we know, but it is good news in a world where most of us have already had COVID at least once. There's a lot of information in this study (which isn’t yet peer-reviewed)...
There were 22,496 online survey participants and 3,978 telephone survey participants, and results were similar but I'll give both. None are great to read:
- Had experienced persistent symptoms following infection; online 17%, and phone 15.9% (1 in every 6-7)
Of those, 33% (1 in 3) said their symptoms were severe, 43% said moderate.
- Risk of Long COVID was; online 13.7% with a single infection, 37% for 3 infections, and phone 11.8% single and 29.5% for 3 infections.
- Averaging both surveys, risk of Long COVID after the first infection was 14.8%, second infection 5.8% and third 5.3% (still 1 in 20).
- Risk of Long COVID was greater with the early strains before Omicron took over, and with more severe illness.
- Compared to people who hadn't had COVID or didn't have Long COVID, the most common symptoms that were a feature of the Long COVID people were dyspnea (shortness of breath), neurocognitive symptoms (brain fog, memory and concentration problems etc), post-exertional malaise (exhausted after doing something) and smell/taste disturbances.
The researchers conclude that "Long COVID is a common and disabling condition among HCWs. Societal and healthcare burden remains important and will continue to accrue given ongoing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and long COVID risk with reinfections."
Healthcare workers risked their health, and are still risking their health, to look after us.
While we're on the after-effects of COVID... A study published by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar has reviewed 35 studies regarding newly diagnosed diabetes - covering a total of almost 4.4 million people, so it's a very large study. They found that after COVID-19 infection incidence was 1.37% (60,189 people), whereas in the general population it is around 0.59%. They also warn that this is probably a low estimate, as most of the people included were just those who returned to hospital for a follow up appointment after their COVID infection.
The vast majority of patients had type 2 diabetes, and incidence was highest 3-12 months after the COVID infection. Risk rose with severity of the illness, Delta or Omicron variants of COVID, repeated COVID infections, pre-existing metabolic disorders and vaccination status (half the risk if vaccinated). In younger people the difference was more pronounced.
The researchers advise that there is further investigation to find out why this happens:
"The mechanisms behind COVID-19-induced diabetes may include direct damage of the pancreatic beta cells, inflammation, insulin resistance, and autoimmune responses."
They also advise that higher risk post-COVID patients are monitored for diabetes, and looked after by a team involving endocrinologists, primary care physicians, and infectious disease specialists (seems very unlikely in the UK given the cash-strapped, understaffed state of the NHS).
It was announced 2 weeks ago that NHS England will be scrapped, and everything come under the Department of Health and Social Care, in order to prevent wasteful duplication, and save time and a lot of money.
Now a cross-party group of MPs have warned NHS England is being abolished without any clear plan or details about how it'll happen, which jobs will go, and how the savings will benefit frontline care.
It all sounds so familiar... Seems someone may have got ideas from over the pond, but thankfully the UK haven't begun firing everyone willy nilly just yet... although local health boards have been asked to lose around half of their staff - about 12,500 people.
No changes have been announced for NHS Wales, NHS Scotland and Northern Ireland's Health and Social Care (HSC) which are under the control of the devolved administrations.
In the same report MPs ask what is happening with the planned 'high containment' labs in Harlow (which we really need, but are nowhere near ready after 10 years and now projected to cost 6x the original budget), and they also demanded a plan to improve patient safety, because of the "jaw-dropping" cost of 'clinical negligence events'. This was £2.8 billion in 2023-24, £536 million of which was paid to lawyers (on top of the Government's own legal team bills).
Yowch. I agree. That money is going to the wrong place. It would be so much better to have £2.8 billion to spend on ensuring patient safety in the first place.
Must do better Wes. Come on, stop wasting money, save the NHS.
There is absolutely no doubt that people in the USA often pay too much for prescription drugs. The USA government bill for health is higher per person than the UK bill for health, despite the fact Americans have private health insurance and we have the NHS. This says bad things about both of us.
The UK need to give over more of our budget to health - rebuilding healthcare jobs and infrastructure, actually save the NHS and get people well again.
The USA need to fix price-gouging and profiteering by big business who can charge what they want because there's little competition and "insurance is paying". A great example is insulin. The inventors gave the patent away for free, it's in many ways the same drug which has been used for decades, and in the past 10 years the US price has bounced up and down. A RAND survey in early 2021 found a single vial cost an average $98.70 in the USA, whereas in Canada it was $12 equivalent, Australia $6.94 and the UK paid $7.52.
The US insulin situation hopefully has improved substantially since then with government intervention, but you get the picture. This isn't about buying a new telly or having a weekend break, it kills people.
Donald Trump has announced that US prescription drug prices will fall by 30%-80%. He has signed an executive order stating that (aside from very poor countries) the USA will pay only as much for drugs as the lowest paying country. Sounds fabulous, but is it realistic or practical?
Firstly, most countries actually negotiate drug prices secretly, so he can't actually know what those prices are.
Second, many deals are just that - rather than a straight exchange of cash for pharmaceuticals, there are negotiations with supply of recipes, ingredients, training, lab time, clinical trials etc etc. Third, in many cases this will go to court - and the sceptical think nothing much will change, but the courts and big pharma will look like the bad guys, while Trump has his glory headlines.
Fourth, drug companies can just decide that they can't afford to supply at that price, so they're out, or limiting supply. What happens when there are shortages? Yep, price rises.
The normal way to deal with this is to negotiate prices privately with drug companies, and the USA should use the massive buying power they have to demand more realistic prices - including discussing trade of ingredients, manufacturing etc. We can't actually leave big pharma with nothing, especially when the USA is reducing funding for all other research, or we won't get any new drugs, such as those we need to replace antibiotics that aren't working any more. Drug development is incredibly expensive.
We need to make this better and fairer for everyone, and just demanding a price cut may not be the best way to do it.
Steven J Hatfill, a virologist who promoted hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID back in 2020, has been made a special adviser for strategic preparedness and response in the US Department of Health and Human Services. (He's basically got a top job in pandemics.)
There has never been any credible evidence to support the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID (it's now been proven ineffective beyond any doubt) and it has serious safety issues, including causing an irregular heartbeat. Nonetheless Trump took it when he had COVID...
Lots of the cuts made by Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE team are being fought in the courts - including some departments which are legally mandated and HAVE TO exist. In some cases the US public are being told the departments haven't been axed or will transfer to the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), but they don't have any staff left and the AHA hasn't even been created yet, so in reality they aren't functioning. These include the National Firefighter Cancer Registry, Firefighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program, Health Hazard Evaluation Program, Respirator Approval Program and Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program.
Not legally mandated, but you'd think totally essential, the CDCs Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) - who advise on infection control for hospitals - has also been demolished.
It's hardly surprising but many of the scientists in the USA who do still have a job are keeping their heads down and hoping to stay below the DOGE/Trump radar. I'm not sure which would be worse, losing your staff and your department funding, getting slated publicly and harassed for speaking out, or being hand-picked to take a place on a team run by someone who 'left' university 3 months before the end of a degree course, was an alternative health social media celeb last week and/or can't actually define the name of the department they now head. Allegedly.
Fear for the jobs of their team, the patients they are working to help or their own career is real, and it's a big part of why we aren't hearing a lot of different viewpoints - and that isn't how science is meant to work.
Talking of which... for a couple of weeks there have been some ripples and rumours regarding human cases of H5N1 in the USA. Rumours go further than I'm saying here, but there's no confirmation, so don't get up from your seat just yet. There have been suggestions that a number of symptomatic farmworkers have tested positive, and that more testing has been pretty much put on hold. There are also suggestions humans are showing mutations better suited to human to human transmission.
Now certainly it seems unusual that we'd get 70 human infections in a steady trickle and then suddenly one day it just stops. You'd expect to still have the odd infected person, but then you'd be grateful if you didn't.
Californian officials certainly seem to believe their H5N1 situation is on the upswing, with state public health officer Dr. Erica Pan saying on Tuesday: “In California, we feel we’ve gotten through the worst of this... In fact, we have demobilized the active public health coordination response and will continue to monitor.”
Modelling released this week suggests Dr Erica may be correct, in large part because California has been so careful with monitoring. Other states not so much.
The modelling accurately predicted how California's outbreak would go, and using that as a baseline, predicted outbreaks in 26 states by 2nd December 2024. Only 16 actually reported cases.
The modelling also either overestimated the number of reported outbreaks in some states, including Texas, Ohio, and New Mexico, or those states have under-reported.
Modelling suggests Texas, Ohio, New Mexico Arizona, Wisconsin, Indiana and Florida are at significant risk of increasing numbers of infected cattle in the coming months, and that the outbreak really may be focussed along the West coast of the USA.
Frustratingly researchers found current measures are insufficient to control H5N1, and even if they tested 100 cows per herd being moved around the country (currently they test 30), it wouldn't have a huge effect on changing future outbreaks. We are also reminded that this is just with cow to cow spread - birds and other mammals aren't even accounted for...
Routine random testing discovered an H5N1 bird flu infected bird at a New Jersey live bird market on 6th May. The market was closed and placed under quarantine, and 1,400 birds were culled.
Certainly the latest US H5N1 bird flu stats look encouraging. No new human cases reported since the beginning of March. We are aware several of the people working on bird flu at the Department of Agriculture and the CDC have been fired, communications workers have been fired, and the CDC does appear to have been told to reduce communications on some health matters, including climate change, COVID and possibly H5N1, but...well, make your own mind up.
Latest stats H5N1 in the USA:
Still 70 human infections and 1 fatality.
There have now been 1,065 cattle herds infected across 17 states, including 42 across 3 states in the last 30 days.
We can glean some information about H5N1 from sequences uploaded to the GISAID database and elsewhere (thank you to Henry L Niman PhD for all of his work on this.) On Wednesday of this week National Veterinary Laboratory Services / APHIS uploaded 296 new H5N1 sequences for wild birds, dairy cows and mammals - mostly cats and skunks, 2 weeks ago they uploaded 129. This picture isn't quite so encouraging or innocuous...
- More US dairy herds that don't have the usual strain of H5N1 Avian Flu - B3.13 'moo flu'. Instead 8 new herds have now been detected with the wild bird version D1.1.
- Sandhill Cranes with D1.3 (recombinant mixture of D1.1 and an older strain from 2022)
- There are some concerning mutations appearing:
11 dairy herds confirmed with B3.13, but with mutation PB2 E627K - which is sometimes known as a 'human adaptation marker'. It means changes have occurred which make the virus much more able to attach to mammals, and was present in a large outbreak of H7N7 avian influenza in The Netherlands in 2003.
8 dairy herds confirmed with B3.13, with the mutation PB2 D701N - another marker which means it is better suited to mammals and therefore humans, in this case it gets inside cells more easily and can reproduce more efficiently.
- The concerning mutations aren't only appearing in dairy cows:
3 bears with D1.1 (wild bird type), with the mutation PB2 E627K
A raccoon with D1.1, with the mutation PB2 E627K
A cat with D1.1, with the mutation PB2 E627K
A bobcat with D1.1, with the mutation PB2 E627K
A cat with D1.1, with the mutation PB2 D701N
2 dairy cows with D1.1, with the mutation PB2 D701N
After the death of a tigress from H5N1 bird flu at Gorakhpur zoo in Uttar Pradesh, India, strict health protocols have been enforced, all zoos have been closed until 20th March and a 5 person team of veterinary doctors and pathologists has been sent to investigate. All animals are being monitored, and food suppliers are having to give full lists of ingredients and where they originated. 105 members of zoo staff have been tested - all were negative. In addition poultry farms and chicken outlets have been "directed to sanitise enclosures" and bird flu testing kits will be made available.
A report will be published within 2 weeks with recommendations for "the future course of action for the zoos and safari parks in the state".
That is impressively thorough...
China has reported 8 more human cases of H9N2 Avian Flu (total this year 18) and 1 person with H10N3 Avian Flu. 6 of those affected are younger children, possibly exposed by backyard flocks or playing in fields.
RFK Jr has asked the US CDC to change guidance for treating measles. His preferred treatments (can I remind you he isn't a doctor and has no medical degree - he is an academic and has degrees in Law, and American History and Literature) are:
- Budesonide - a steroid used to reduce inflammation, usually in the airways or digestive system
- Clarithromycin - an antibiotic - a drug to kill bacteria (measles is a virus)
- Vitamin A - The guidance has already changed to say vitamin A 'may' be used and 2 doses maximum are recommended for severe cases in hospital under medical supervision. It also stresses the dangers of vitamin A toxicity (overdose), and that it should never be given to pregnant women. As a reminder vitamin A really does help you fight measles, but only if you are deficient, and most American children aren't.
In response to RFK Jr's claims that we can't know if vaccines work because they aren't tested against a placebo, a group of scientists headed by Dr Brad Spellberg, Chief Medical Officer at the Los Angeles General Medical Center, have put together a list of vaccines which HAVE been tested against a placebo. They include Cholera, Dengue, COVID, Haemophilus influenzae B (aka Hib), Hepatitis A and B, Herpes Zoster (Shingles), HPV, Flu, Malaria, Measles, Mumps, Meningitis B, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Polio, RSV, Rotavirus, Rubella, Salmonella, Smallpox, Tetanus, TB, Varicella (chickenpox).
It's usual to test against a placebo in early trials, it's unethical to test again using a placebo weeks, years or decades later, when it would leave people unprotected against a pathogen for which we have a working vaccine.
Latest MEASLES figures:
Texas - to 16th May: 718 cases, 93 hospitalised, 2 fatalities
Kansas - to 14th May: 56 cases, 2 hospitalised (5 vaccinated)
New Mexico - to 16th May: 74 cases, 7 hospitalised, 1 fatality (9 vaccinated)
Oklahoma - to 1st May: 15 cases (1 vaccinated)
Indiana - to 1st May: 8 cases
Illinois - to 15th May: 8 cases
Michigan - to 8th May: 9 cases
Ohio - website down
North Dakota - to 14th May: 12 cases
Arkansas - to 7th May: 6 cases
California - to 12th May: 11 cases
New York - to latest report: 8 cases
Montana - to 5th May: 8 cases (none vaccinated)
Reportedly Florida has stopped publicly sharing infectious disease alerts; it’s unclear why. YLE (Your Local Epidemiologist) suggests cases are slowing in a number of places due to incredibly efficient work by local public health teams, and a lack of available people left to infect...
In Canada the total to 26th April was 1,506 cases, 105 hospitalised (43 vaccinated - 3%). Total for Ontario was 1,249.
Mexico also has a measles outbreak, mostly in Chihuahua, which borders Texas (the outbreaks are linked by the Mennonite communities). On 4th April they had reported 934 probable and confirmed cases, but have moved to only reporting confirmed cases. As of 30th April that total is 583, and 1 fatality.
Sorry I missed this earlier, Colombia has an outbreak of Yellow Fever, a virus spread by infected mosquitoes. President Gustavo Petro declared a health emergency on 15th April, with 85 severe cases and 38 deaths since September 2024, compared to 2 cases in 2023 and none between 2019 and 2022.
More than 3/4 of the cases are in Tolima.
Mass vaccinations of over 540,000 people have taken place, and over 3m vaccines are still available for use.
While there are no therapies or drugs to treat Yellow Fever, Colombia's Outbreak Response have been working to improve survival from severe illness with better management of dehydration and fever, and the mortality rate has dropped from 47% to 37%.
There has been an outbreak of MERS in Saudi Arabia. MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) is a Coronavirus which causes fever, cough, difficulty breathing etc. and it has a fatality rate of 36% in all known cases.
Primarily MERS is transmitted by camels to humans, who can then pass it to other humans. Of the 2,613 known cases since 2012, 2,204 have been in Saudi Arabia.
Between 1st March and 21st April this year, 9 cases were detected, 6 are healthcare workers who cared for one of the infected patients (4 asymptomatic and 2 mild symptoms). The infected people were identified by contact tracing and testing of all contacts - and hopefully they've found them all.
As well as showing just how dangerous a job being a healthcare worker can be, this really prove how effective contact tracing and testing is now. 10 years ago we'd probably never have known the 4 asymptomatic healthcare workers had been infected, the disease could have spread and caused outbreaks elsewhere. Testing every contact also shows how many people really are asymptomatic, something we became very aware of with a more common and somewhat related Coronavirus - SARS-CoV-2 (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) or COVID as we tend to call it.
On 5th May in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Minister of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Welfare, Dr. Kamba Mulanda Samuel Roger, officially declared a Cholera epidemic.
Cholera is caused by a bacteria, it is usually spread via contaminated water, and occasionally via food.
The people of DRC really have the very worst of fortune. The fact we hear about them so often demonstrates incredibly clearly just a small part of how much your health is impacted, and your life shortened, purely because you were born poor.
Since the beginning of the year over 18,000 Cholera cases have been reported, and 364 deaths, a case fatality rate of 1 in 49, or 2%. The usual fatality rate for Cholera is 1%, so the World Health Organisation are quite rightly disturbed and investigating.
US head of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr, took his children and grandchildren swimming in sewage contaminated water for Mother's Day. Lovely family day out. I think it's becoming quite evident that he doesn't believe in germs (yes, this is a real thing, some people do not believe germs exist). Even a child can look at germs (bacteria), with a £20 microscope. It's fascinating - please don't use poo though, get them to scrape some of the stuff off their teeth with a fingernail.
Giving antivirals to someone who has flu shortens the length of time they are ill, and the CENTERSTONE Study led by researchers from the University of Michigan, using antiviral 'Baloxsvir Marboxil', has just proven that it also reduces the chance of transmitting flu to family members by about 30%.
Good stuff. Could come in handy if we ever have a flu pandemic...
An exciting study of 1.27 million people from North Korea has found that Shingles vaccination significantly decreases your risk of "cardiovascular events" - such as heart attacks, heart disease, disrhythmia, heart failure etc etc. In fact it reduces by about 1/4. Effects are strongest 2-3 years after vaccination, but last at least 8 years, and they are more pronounced in people under age 60, men, low income, rural and generally less healthy people.
It may well be a good idea to roll it out for that alone, with the added bonus of reducing your chance of developing Shingles!
A study linking the virus which causes cold sores to Alzheimer's is making the news finally. I say finally because the study is from 1997, and everyone's ignored it until now.
The virus is Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1), and back in 1997 researchers found it in the brains of older people. Some viruses are good at hiding in the body for years, even decades (e.g. TB, Varicella Zoster - causes Shingles). It's known that people with the gene APOE-e4 have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's, but the researchers discovered if they'd also been infected with HSV1, their risk was significantly higher. The good news is that research since then has found specific antivirals can reduce the damage, giving hope for future treatments to slow Alzheimer's progression.
The researchers did not find the same negative result after infection with Varicella Zoster (Shingles, also known as Herpes Zoster, is caused by the Varicella Zoster virus, which also causes Chicken Pox). They did however discover that people vaccinated against Shingles were less likely to develop dementia at all - and that result has just been confirmed by a newly published Stanford University study of Australian people, which began with a Shingles vaccination programme in 2016.
Double good news.
That's another vote for Shingles vaccination from me... sign me up.
Actuaries do very complicated maths and the results might be really useful, but they don't always make headlines (I regularly used their estimates of how many people actually had COVID, had immunity etc). Last week the the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute) posted:
"A new report from the Actuary Company has revealed that an estimated 4 million people, who otherwise wouldn't be here, are alive today thanks to the RNLI
Thanks to our supporters and volunteers for making it possible."
Now that really is something to be proud of. A huge thank you to everyone who volunteers their time, and risks their life, to save others in danger.
It is the weekend - huzzah! It's been a busy month for me, so I'm looking forward to a treat (not turning on my laptop for a start!). I hope you have something nice planned for yourself too. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, with the theme of 'Community'. People need people. We may have a local club, society or hobby group, we may have a group of friends or family, and we all have a local community. When we work together, we can look out for each other. Check in on your neighbour, go for a walk in the sunshine just to smile and say hello to people. Sit on a bench listening to the birds and watching the world go by. Be part of your community and connect with others. It's good for your heart, your head and your soul.
Back in 2 weeks, until then...
Don't Swim In Poo Water, Wear Sunscreen, Save The NHS...
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Sources COVID
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
Reference pages H5N1
https://www.paho.org/en/topics/avian-influenza
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html
Infectious disease tracker
Bird flu updates and news
UK NOIDS
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/notifiable-diseases-causative-agents-repor
ts-for-2024/noids-causative-agents-week-34-week-ending-25-august-2024
Measles Sit Rep
Kansas
Texas
New Mexico
UK cases Measles
Canada Measles
ECDC
Images
Mental Health Week 2025
List of helpful phone numbers
Mental Health Week 2025
UK Gov progress
Mental health and nursing
Tutle of Nurse protected by law
Small things can make a big difference. Mental health awareness week
Trump new US Surgeon General
Dr Casey Means
CDC Acting Director
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-rfk-jr-says-matthew-buzzelli
COVID Inquiry
https://www.channel4.com/news/we-just-werent-prepared-expert-on-covid-test-and-trace-failure
Nurses pay UK NHS
Nurse to be a protected title UK law
NHS Trust leaders survey
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-england-nhs-providers-wes-streeting-royal-college-of-nursing-b2747668.html
Vaccine recommendations RFK Jr and pregnant people
https://x.com/HelenBranswell/status/1923172060764766653?t=9FPV4PF5Tsr6zsJgSSW12Q&s=09
COVID before or during pregnancy may confer 2 to 3 times the risk of miscarriage
Study results
Qebec Long COVID
CIDRAP Long COVID study
COVID and diabetes risk
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2025.2492211?scroll=top&needAccess=true#d1e857
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/scientists-estimate-higher-rate-new-onset-diabetes-after-covid-general-population
Government has no clear plan for NHS England abolition
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g23m22x22o
NHS plans unthinkable cuts to services
USA drug pricing
"Most favoured nations"
Insulin
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47491964.amp
US Hydroxychloroquine doctor Hatfill named in pandemic role
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/04/hatfill-covid-hydroxychloroquine-anthrax/
DOGE cuts departments with a legal duty to exist
Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC)
https://x.com/DrEricDing/status/1919935516599816391?t=rjhQY0zIL8WtDUMItMxMSw&s=19
Trump’s ‘fear factor’: Scientists go silent as funding cuts escalate | Science
Bird flu CDC silenced?
https://substack.com/@sarscov2covid19/note/c-116783180?r=354hjt
https://substack.com/@sarscov2covid19/note/c-114915380?r=354hjt
H5N1 Californian officials certainly believe the worst is behind them
https://archive.ph/xnvDZ
Bird Flu Modelling
https://web.archive.org/web/20250512175055/https://www.news-medical.net/news/20250511/New-model-reveals-H5N1-is-spreading-undetected-in-US-dairy-herds.aspx
Modelling study
Single case Bird flu in New Jersey.live bird market
H5N1 Are the CDC being silenced?
Avian flu data goes missing
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Trump-not-allowing-the-CDC-to-post-information-on-the-bird-flu-spreading-around-our-country-They-were-forced-to-delete-it-why
Concerning mutations H5N1
Bears and a raccoon
Dairy herds with random D1.1 increased, plus other links and news
https://bsky.app/profile/hlniman.bsky.social/post/3lmndm3esbs2p
PB2 D701N
PB2 E627K
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0308352100
2005 h to h transmission H5N1
India reacts strongly to death of zoo lioness
China H9N2 and H10N3 Avian Flu
HK health report
RFK Jr askes CDC TO change guidance for measles treatment
CDC Measles guidance amended
List of vaccines which are placebo tested via Dr Brad Spellberg MD
Kansas measles now 56 cases May 14th
The U.S. has surpassed 1,000 confirmed measles cases—1,014 as of Saturday. While this is slightly behind Mexico (1,065) and Canada (1,867) case counts, it’s a troubling trend as we edge closer to breaking a 25-year record.
The North Dakota and Arkansas outbreaks (11 cases and 6 cases). We also had sporadic cases in California and New York the past week. Note: Florida stopped publicly sharing infectious disease alerts; it’s unclear why.
Growth in other places, like West Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, continues to slow down.
Kansas
Measles YLE 12th May
7th April YALE school of public health Measles SITREP
Measles 7th April
all eyes are on El Paso right now), big thanks to the public health workers working to contain.
Other sporadic cases continue to pop up in the past week. Also, a small outbreak in Montana continues to grow, and a new outbreak in North Dakota:
Illinois: +2 (unrelated cases)
Montana: 7 (+2: household cluster)
North Dakota +4
Latest measles just after my report Friday week 0
Whooping cough cases in Florida are nearly double the same time last year.
Yellow fever Colombia
https://healthclinics.superdrug.com/what-is-yellow-fever/
MERS Saudi Arabia March and April 2025
https://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/mers-cov/mers-outbreaks.html
DRC Cholera
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cholera
RFK JR swims in poo
Giving antivirals reduces chance of flu transmission by 30%
Previous studies
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199910283411802
Shingles vaccine benefits.
Herpes cold sore virus and Alzheimer's
https://theconversation.com/thirty-years-on-our-research-linking-viral-infections-with-alzheimers-is-finally-getting-the-attention-it-deserves-254656
Reduction of damage with antivirals
Stanford University Study Shingles vaccination and alzheimers
Bill Gates winding down the Gates foundation in 2045.
https://x.com/HelenBranswell/status/1920462495044477121?t=udLpphGxmmlzUqxFEStXWg&s=09
RNLI and 4 million people
Experts call Kennedy's plan to find autism's cause unrealistic | AP News
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