COVID-19, Flu, H5N1 Avian Flu and Other Virus UK and World News Update 28th November 2025
Norovirus cases are on a downward slope in the UK. One down, one up. RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) season is upon us. This is a common virus most people hardly notice. RSV feels like a chesty cold, but can cause pneumonia in people who are less robust, and Bronchiolitis in little ones, which is the leading cause of infant mortality. If you have a chesty cold or are otherwise ill, don't visit Grandma, or friends and family with babies, and definitely don't visit anyone in hospital.
The UK HSA weekly winter surveillance report shows that although we had an early start to flu season, it's a fairly 'normal' flu season. Cases are rising, but not leaping. Their wording:
- Flu activity has increased this week following a dip in recent weeks. Outbreaks in care homes and schools have also increased.
- RSV has increased and is circulating at low to medium levels across indicators.
- COVID-19 activity has decreased across most indicators and is circulating at baseline levels.
During the latest strike by resident doctors in England from 14th to 19th November, 95% of planned elective care went ahead.
The UK NHS say an "average of 17,236 resident doctors were absent from work each day due to the strike action, called by the British Medical Association (BMA)".
It is however extremely costly to cover for striking doctors using agency staff or overtime, and it's possible the next strike will be next month, because they cannot come to any agreement with the UK Government, so it's very definitely not all good news.
The UK COVID Inquiry has released their latest report. 800 pages regarding decision making and political governance.
Honestly it's damning but holds few surprises, we all saw this happening at the time. They found there was a "toxic and chaotic culture" in Downing Street, with women's opinions ignored and advisor Dominic Cummings presiding over operations alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
They believe the pandemic was badly managed, lockdown could have been avoided entirely by bringing in other measures, but the UK Government did "too little, too late", wasting February entirely. Lockdown became inevitable, but was also too late. They estimate that if it had been begun a week earlier, 23,000 lives could have been saved in that first wave.
Baroness Hallett: "That these same mistakes were repeated later in 2020 is inexcusable." It really is.
The Government got a slating for 'Eat Out To Help Out', which anyone could see was the opposite of sensible scientific messaging (and advised against by Chris Whitty), and Boris showed a “failure to appreciate the urgency of the situation”, hoping it would all just blow over.
It would be laughable if it didn’t involve killing actual people. The British Medical Association have labelled it a "catastrophic failure to manage the pandemic".
Obviously Boris is unhappy at this report (which he ordered) and vented his frustrations in the Daily Mail. He said it wasn't true that it was chaotic (we could all see you) and the inquiry is "totally muddled". He accused Baroness Hallett of "breathtaking inconsistency", being "hopelessly incoherent" and using "hysterical predictions", all of which doesn’t actually make him seem any better.
If you take the job as Prime Minister, your responsibility. He did at least offer some form of apology: "I remain full of regret for the things the government I led got wrong and full of sympathy for all those who suffered...". However he has not apologised for the 23,000 people who lost their lives, instead suggesting the report was a waste of £200 million and should probably be "filed vertically", a euphemism for putting it through the shredder...
The whole thing is published online, should you fancy a reminder of the incompetence, with the satisfaction of knowing it's been noted... COVID19 dot public-inquiry dot UK
Since my last report the outbreak of viral haemorrhagic fever in Ethiopia has been confirmed as Marburg. Marburg is one of the world's most deadly diseases and has very similar symptoms to Ebola, including high fever, encephalitis and internal bleeding. This is only the 20th ever known outbreak of Marburg, and the WHO have sent a rapid response team to assist with testing and care of patients.
As of 27th November Ethiopian Ministry Of Health report 12 cases had been confirmed by lab tests, with 8 fatalities. 122 possible cases, and just 2 people recovered. At least 129 contacts are being monitored.
So, Avian Influenza, or bird flu, and today there's an interview being widely shared online. It's with Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, the medical director at the Institut Pasteur’s respiratory infections centre, and quite rightly she says “A bird flu pandemic would probably be quite severe, potentially even more severe than the pandemic we experienced" (referring to COVID). This shouldn't be news to any of my regular readers, you should all appreciate this. Flu is more easily caught, and unlike COVID, a flu to which we have no immunity is more likely to kill a lot of people of all ages, including children and healthy young people. When we look back at the Spanish flu we can see the effect. We are in a much better position now because we have antivirals, we have vaccinations and the capability to make them very quickly, we have a greater understanding of how flu works. We aren't in a fantastic position because we have a lot of people who will refuse a vaccination and we have online misinformation, but as individuals, communities and nations we are far more aware and able to reduce chance of illness.
The big avian flu news in the English speaking world this week is that an older Washington State resident with underlying health conditions has become infected with H5N5 and unfortunately has died. This is the first US human case reported in 9 months, and the first ever known human infection with H5N5.
The patient kept a mixed backyard flock of domestic poultry, and environmental samples have tested positive, as well as birds at the property. A huge number of contacts are being monitored, including around 100 healthcare workers.
This patient's infection with H5N5 was a reassortment - a mix of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 which has been killing millions of birds (seals, mice, cats, US dairy cattle etc), and and a Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza (LPAI) virus with 'N5' proteins. The resulting HPAI H5N5 has been seen quite a few times, including in Canadian birds, and some scientists wrote about it's pandemic potential as long ago as January of this year. As Professor Florian Krammer (Virologist working at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York) points out: "It is not the only such reassortment around. H5N9 has been detected as well. And the D1.1 genotype of H5N1 also is a reassortment with an N1 from a low path avian influenza virus."
It is always another roll of the dice. LPAI viruses infect birds, but make less of them severely ill, so they're very common - like human flu. What is very inconvenient for humans is for HPAI, including H5N1, to keep mixing with something that's everywhere, because eventually it will roll a 6.
Talking of reassortments and random human bird flu infections, a 23 year old Mexican woman reported to have H5 avian flu in September has now been confirmed to have had H5N2. This is only the second ever known human case of H5N2 - both in Mexico. She lives in Mexico City and has no history of travel. Many wild birds lived in the courtyard of her home, and animals living at the property also tested positive for H5 flu. Thankfully, although she was incredibly ill and coughing up blood at her worst point, she recovered and was allowed home on 11th October.
So far this year Cambodia has reported 18 human cases of H5N1 Avian Flu, and 8 of the patients have died. The latest fatality is a young man from Phnom Penh with no known exposure to birds, which is always of concern. Some Thai media is reporting other local people falling ill, although I can't find any official sources saying the same, so it's hopefully just a case of panic and "Bob wasn't well either, and Maureen has a nasty cold".
The European Food Safety Authority on Tuesday published a statement entitled "Unprecedented high level of highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild birds in Europe during the 2025 autumn migration", and I think that pretty much summarises the situation. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is rife and hitting hard across Europe, and in many other parts of the Northern hemisphere.
"Between 6 September and 14 November 2025, 1,443 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5) virus detections were reported in wild birds across 26 countries in Europe. This number was four times higher than in the same period in 2024 and the highest overall for those weeks since at least 2016."
"The vast majority of HPAI virus detections (99%) were reported as A(H5N1), and most were of a new variant of a previously circulating strain that was introduced into Europe from the east before rapidly spreading westward."
They have published guidance for affected countries/areas, recommending enhanced surveillance for early detection, robust biosecurity on farms and other measures to help protect domestic poultry, wild birds and mammals at risk from avian flu.
This includes not artificially feeding any wild birds in risk areas, to prevent them from gathering together.
Since the last report 2 weeks ago in the UK more H5N1 avian flu infections have been detected, including large commercial poultry premises near:
- Dalton-in-Furness, Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria
- Mundford, Breckland, Norfolk
- Lydd, Folkstone and Hythe Kent
- Ely, East Cambridgeshire, Cambridgeshire
In England and Wales there are mandatory housing measures.
The US APHIS website shows 0 new cases of avian flu in farmed animals since October 10th - and it's hard to know whether it's simply not been updated or if this is genuine. Sadly there are a massive 93 confirmed bird flocks in just the last 30 days - 41 commercial and 52 backyard.
It isn’t just in Europe and the USA that bird flu is having a ball. Increases are being reported across the world, including Asia, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt. South Korea also has an early start to their bird flu season, and even though it's only November, for the first time ever they have reported the detection of 3 different Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) subtypes in wild birds - H5N1, H5N6 and H5N9.
South Korea has such an unfortunate history with HPAI that least year they updated their pandemic plan and ran a 19 day nationwide mock zoonotic (animal/bird to human) training exercise.
They aren't taking any chances, and have announced strengthened quarantine measures, with massive fines for non-compliance.
With the increase in infections of wild birds this year, and the subsequent increase in infections in farmed and domestic birds, it increases risk of exposure, so there is a good chance we may see more human cases too. At the moment we still have no known ongoing human to human transmission, so no greater pandemic risk than there was last week, month or year.
More disturbing news for sanity and the US CDC. It is still without a permanent head (after Susan Monarez was fired for refusing to rubberstamp anti-vaccine policies). RFK Jr's mate the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Jim O’Neill is still acting director. It looks however like a Principal Deputy Director of the CDC has been appointed, and it is Dr. Ralph Abraham. He is Louisiana's Surgeon General, and when RFK Jr was sworn in as head of HHS, Dr Ralph immediately changed policy in Louisiana to stop promoting mass vaccination. InsideMedicine also points out he's been in the press in the past for prescribing lots of Ivermectin (dewormer), a treatment proven ineffective for COVID, being a top 0.2% prescriber of Opioids 12 years ago despite national attempts to control the US 'opioid crisis', delaying reporting a Whooping Cough outbreak (including 2 deaths) and calling himself a Family Physician when he isn’t actually board certified in family medicine. So yeah... seems like an obvious choice...
A couple of weeks ago Canada lost it's 'measles-free' status, and now the USA looks like they'll lose theirs in January. The US CDC has finally linked the measles outbreaks which we could all see began to circulate in a close-knit Mennonite community in West Texas, and spread mostly via Mennonite people who had visited with that community and then gone home.
Mennonites are not inherently anti-vaccine, nor is it "their fault". They often home-school, so don't have mandatory vaccinations like state school attendees, they don't always go outside the community for medical care, and they regularly come together in large gatherings. All of this added up to a very unfortunate unprotected group of people.
Measles can cause deafness, blindness, brain damage and other disabilities, but we are only told about the fatalities. It can wipe out your immunity to other diseases, and 7-11 survivors out of every 100,000 will develop the long-term fatal complication 'subacute sclerosing panencephalitis'. The Mennonite people and other communities affected will be reminded of this outbreak for decades to come.
While US Measles was grabbing the headlines, Whooping Cough was quietly spreading through underprotected populations. In 2023 across the whole USA there were 7,063 cases, but in 2024 there were at least 35,493(5 times as many - figures aren't yet final). This year it's hoped there will be an overall decrease on last year, however that certainly isn’t true everywhere.
We know Louisiana had problems earlier this year, and now Kentucky has it's worst Whooping Cough outbreak since 2012. As of 19th November there have been 566 cases this year, and tragically 3 infants have died. None of the 3 babies or their mothers were vaccinated.
Whooping Cough (Pertussis) is especially dangerous to babies under 1 year. Vaccination is usually offered to pregnant women and to babies with their early vaccinations beginning at 2 months. It's honestly horrible, and most new parents nowadays haven't ever seen it, so they can't appreciate how awful it is.
Mpox is still officially a pandemic, it hasn't gone away, and the generally far more deadly Clade 1b variant is still spreading in Europe. At least 45 cases have been reported since August, with at least 7 of those people hospitalised.
The UK has detected 19 cases in the past year (mostly imported), and anyone currently at higher risk is being asked to come forward for vaccination. Wherever you are in Europe this is men who have sex with other men.
In some African countries (e.g. DRC) where mpox Clade 1b is spreading among the whole population, children are disproportionately affected and sadly they are more likely to die. WHO have been really proactive in these areas, and during this outbreak have already vaccinated over 1.4 million people at greatest risk.
This isn’t a virus, it isn’t even a bacteria or a pathogen, but it's killing us all the same.
Last week The Lancet has published 3 major reviews of studies on Ultra Processed Foods (UPFs). These are foods that when you look at the ingredients, you couldn't buy them from the supermarket and make it in a home kitchen - you'd need a chemist lab and a factory. They often replace real foods like sugars and fats with chemically made alternatives, and contain colourings, fillers and flavourings. They regularly don't contain any whole ingredient and are softer, easier to eat more of, and produced by companies with an advertising budget bigger than the World Health Organisation's annual spend. It includes foods that really have no justification to be like that, such as oven chips, breakfast cereals or breads, and what the studies have discovered is that the more of them you eat, the higher your personal likelihood of chronic health conditions such as obesity, high cholesterol, depression, diabetes, Crohn's, kidney disease, high blood pressure, heart disease and early death.
In the UK, Canada and the USA around half the food eaten for the past few years has been UPF, and The Lancet is calling on Governments to make new laws to lower that figure.
Nobody is saying stop eating UPFs, we all need to enjoy life, we are busy people who rely on not having to cook from scratch all the time, and a can of pop or pack of sweeties is a treat most people can appreciate. What increasing numbers of scientists are asking is that we try and tip that balance back in favour of real foods, with recognisable ingredients and all the goodness nature intended left in.
Trump Of The Week... it's RFK Jr and the CDC website...
“The CDC cannot be trusted as a source. It is a weapon.”
Damning statement there from Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the previous Director of the US CDC’s 'National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases' (until he resigned with several other senior scientists, when the head of the CDC was fired for refusing to rubberstamp anti-vaccine policies).
With the 43 day US Government shutdown, around a third of the CDC employees fired and many of the senior staff being replaced or simply leaving, RFK Jr the head of Health and Human Services pretty much has carte blanche to do what he pleases professionally unchecked.
Last Wednesday the CDC's 'Autism and Vaccines' page was amended. The page now reads like a stoned 3am conversation between a couple of conspiracy theorists who are giggling about editing Wikipedia. It does begin with the statement "Vaccines do not cause autism*" but if you follow the *asterisk it says:
"The header "Vaccines do not cause autism" has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website".
Oh...
RFK Jr made promises he wouldn't mess with vaccines when he was inaugurated, and I guess he feels this is his way of meeting that promise (it isn’t).
The rest of the page claims that we're only told vaccines don't cause autism "to prevent vaccine hesitancy", and lists studies which didn't find any link, while basically saying "they didn't prove there wasn't a link though, did they?". No, because it is always impossible to prove a negative. You can only 100% prove something didn't happen by proving something else did happen. You can't prove the moon isn’t made of Wensleydale without finding out it's actually made of rocks. Countless studies from countless scientists of different age groups and different children in different countries cannot find any link - and the scientific community is 99.99% sure that's because there isn’t one.
RFK Jr clearly has a truth in his head about the "causes of autism" and he cannot give up his belief. He's tried vaccines, vaccine ingredients, paracetamol, circumcision, and he's never had a shred of evidence to support those theories. Maybe he should look more closely at genetics (which we know in many cases can make people far more likely to receive an ASD diagnosis). He has an autistic child, and seems to have a special interest that has taken over, when other people can't appreciate why he cannot move on.
So, who's up for a sweepstake on what he's going to suggest next?
As a reminder, if you have autism, or behaviours that people label as being autistic, it's just one part of who you are. You don't get part of a person without the rest, and the qualities that give you or other people joy are related to the qualities that can be a struggle. We all do things that enthral people, and things that annoy them, and everyone has a right to be respected for who they are. We should stop talking about other people as if we are better than them or they shouldn't be here. All of us are just one person.
RFK Jr's home brew theory of the week:
Darnit, we didn't have time for that sweepstake... Hot on the heels of vaccinations cause autism (all evidence suggests they don't), Tylenol (paracetamol) causes autism (no evidence to suggest it does), circumcision causes autism (ermmm nope), this week RFK Jr has suggested that aluminium in vaccinations causes peanut allergies (guess what, no evidence for this one either). Crikey he's getting desperate.
RFK made the proud announcement he'd found something that can "fit the timeline perfectly", adding the caveat "we don't have the science to say if this is an effect or not". Gosh, shocker, I'm stunned.
And just like that, we're back to finding timeline graphs that have similar shaped lines, and having the head of all USA health making wild declarations with no evidence. My favourites were the matches for rates of autism and Netflix subscriptions or sales of Lululemon, but there you go...
As an aside, one thing we do know is that avoiding peanuts until after a child is 12 months DOES raise their chance of peanut allergy, and until 2015 that was the advice given to parents. Now we know finely ground peanuts/smooth peanut butter should usually be introduced as part of normal diet between 6 and 12 months. If your child has other allergies or risk of allergies you may be given specific timetables (sometimes even to introduce peanuts or other foods earlier) - always follow the advice of your healthcare provider, and ask if you aren't sure.
It can take a while for scientific news to make headlines. Sometimes it needs to be checked and double checked, sometimes it requires someone to spot a pattern, sometimes a missing piece of information or final numbers need to be added. So here's some fabulous news that took 4 years to reach us... Confirmed figures for cervical cancer in Australia for 2021 show NOT A SINGLE CASE in women under 25.
These woman and girls were all offered the HPV vaccination as teenagers, and none of them have as yet developed cervical cancer. Flipping awesome. It is estimated that by 2040 the number of people being diagnosed each year will have dropped by over 2/5ths, and we genuinely have a chance to wipe this out in time for our Grandchildren or Great Grandchildren. Vaccinations save lives.
It's the weekend! A huge thank you to all of you who wished me a happy birthday 2 weeks ago. It was indeed, and I got a present I've wanted for a long time - a puppy! His name is Dougal and he's 12 weeks old. Crikey they're hard work aren't they? He does at least sleep through, and he's very cute, so I can't complain too much. I shall be treating myself to a weekend away from the laptop over the next couple of days, and trip round the garden every hour to tell him he's a good boy for peeing. I hope you have something warm and cuddly in your life, and that you don't forget to spend some time for yourself over the next couple of days - you've earnt it. I'll be back in 2 weeks....
Stay Home When You Are Ill, Keep Warm, Save The NHS...
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Sources COVID
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
UK Health Data
UK latest COVID cases UPDATES THURSDAY 4pm
GP surveillance England Primary Care
https://www.rcgp.org.uk/representing-you/research-at-rcgp/research-surveillance-centre/public-health-data
UK Norovirus weekly update
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-norovirus-and-rotavirus-surveillance-reports-2025-to-2026-season/national-norovirus-and-rotavirus-report-week-44-report-data-to-week-43-data-up-to-26-october-2025
US CDC respiratory dashboard
Reference pages H5N1
https://www.paho.org/en/topics/avian-influenza
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html
Measles Sit Rep US CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html
UK cases Measles
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-epidemiology-2023/confirmed-cases-of-measles-in-england-by-month-age-region-and-upper-tier-local-authority-2025
Canada Measles
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/
ECDC Weekly Report
(https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/Communicable-disease-threats-report-week-17-2025.pdf)
Images
WHO AMR Gonorrhoea image
RSV NHS UK image
Cervical cancer image WHO
UK HSA how to stop spreading flu image
UK Norovirus stats down
Protecting backyard flocks from avian influenza
Sources
UK Norovirus stats down
UK Flu COVID stats
Flu US latest is low
Flu update USA week 1
CDC weekly influenza report
Resident doctor's strike action 14th to 19th November - 95% of electives went ahead
The UK COVID Inquiry
Covid inquiry: UK did 'too little, too late', leading to thousands more Covid deaths, says inquiry - BBC News
COVID Inquiry. 23,000 lives could have been saved if we had imposed restrictions a week earlier.
Covid 19 Inquiry report reveals Government’s catastrophic failure to manage the pandemic, says BMA
Public response to covid inquiry report
Boris Johnson's response to COVID inquiry
Johnsons response
Marburg Ethiopia Confirmed cases 10, deaths 5.
Marburg 20th November
Ethiopia - Marburg confirmed 14th November
Marburg ethiopia 20th Nov
Marburg 22nd local news
Latest 24th Nov Marburg
Avian flu pandemic would be worse than COVID
H5N5 in human
Older adult - no gender, age, name
Mixed backyard flock, and environmental samples from around the flock also tested positive for H5N5.
Hospitalised early November
First ever known human H5N5 infection
Washington State man with bird flu
WAPo
Following potential contacts including 100 healthcare workers
Washington state man believed to be the first to die from a rare strain of bird flu | The Independent
Strain of bird flu virus never before reported in people is behind first human case in US in nine months | CNN
Human H5N5 case
First ever H5N5 human case
Reassortment H5N5
Man in Washington reassortment
It’s not H5N1, it’s H5N5, but that isn’t a relief to me. It’s a reassortant that put someone in the hospital. This is unpredictable. I hope epidemiologists are investigating to assess who else might have been exposed, so appropriate outbreak investigation & control can be applied
post about H5N5
H5N5 pandemic potential - Ash Banyard and Ian Brown
Florian Krammer quote
1) So, the Washington State H5 case is an H5N5, it seems. That doesn't make less or more worrisome than H5N1. High path H5N5 has been detected in Canada a number of times. It is a reassortant between circulating H5N1 and low pathogenic avian influenza virus with the 'N5'.
Environmental samples
First Human Dies of Rare H5N5 Bird Flu Strain. Here’s What You Need to Know | Scientific American
Mexico’s September human bird flu case confirmed as H5N2 - BNO News
This was the third H5 case reported from Mexico since 2024
Further avian flu outbreaks in Africa - South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt
Cambodia death H5N1
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501790504/man-dies-from-bird-flu-in-phnom-penh/
A 22-year-old man in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, died
from H5N1 bird flu on November 15, 2025, marking
the country's 18th confirmed case and eighth fatality this year
This story says 2 dozen residents ill with similar symptoms Cambodia H5N1
So much bird flu around that it increases risk of human exposure
UK Govt advice to reduce risk to the public from bird flu
Unprecedented Avian Flu due to migrating birds
Report file download
UK avian flu situation
APHIS birds Avian flu
South Korea HPAI H5 viruses
https://www.reddit.com/r/ContagionCuriosity/s/xGLYTusZRc
Louisiana surgeon general who stopped promoting vaccination will be second in command at CDC
Dr Ralph CDC Deputy
Maine's response to Dr Ralph
Measles free status
Measles elimination and what it means
Texas outbreak continues to spread
Mennonite community measles outbreak
West Texas measles outbreak over
Kentucky Whooping Cough 3rd death
BMJ Whooping Cough in the USA in 2025
Deadly mpox variant Clade 1b spreads in Europe amid rush for vaccines | The Independent
Mpox Europe
Mpox DRC
Over 1.4m people in DRC vaccinated.
The Lancet - 3 UPF studies
Editorial UPFs
UK UPF eating habits
The one thing that could halve your ultra-processed food consumption in a week | The Independent
Experts Call For Urgent Action on Ultra-Processed Foods After Landmark Review : ScienceAlert
Ultra processed foods
CDC Autism and vaccines pages
Government Shutdown Clock – The White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/government-shutdown-clock/
Jeremy Faust covers RFK autism website
A Quarter of the CDC Is Gone | WIRED
CDC autism pages
RFK Jr vaccines cause peanut allergies
UK NHS advice peanuts and weaning
Food allergies UK NHS
peanut introduction
After YEARS of disinformation about the HPV vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, here are the facts:
285 studies
132 million people in real-world data
157,414 in randomized trials
~80% reduction in cervical cancer when given before age 16
No increase in serious adverse events
Disinformation has done more harm than the vaccine ever has.
Zero cervical cancer in Australian women under age 25 in 2021
Cancer Research Cervical Cancer Trends
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