What to know about new COVID variants and the spread of bird flu and measles

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• John Yang:

  Four years after the start of the pandemic, hospitalizations for COVID are at an all time low, but there are new variants. And now bird flu is in the headlines. It's been found in at least 36 dairy herds across nine states. But so far this year, there's only been one confirmed human case.

  So, how concerned should we be about all of this? Katelyn Jetelina writes the popular newsletter, Your Local Epidemiologist, and she was just named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in health. So, Katelyn, how concerned should we be about bird flu?

  Katelyn Jetelina, Author, "Your Local Epidemiologist": Yeah, you know, what's clear is that this is continuing to spread among cows and other animals, but the risk to the general public is very low. And this really means there's nothing we can do other than don't touch dead birds or animals, don't drink raw milk, and maybe even call your congressman for better biosecurity support.

  But this is definitely not March of 2020, and it's definitely not even January of 2020. But, of course, the situation can change, and usually with outbreaks, it can change very quickly. I think that alarm bells for the general public should really start going off if we start seeing human to human spread.

  Right now it's really an all hands on deck response for public health to prevent another pandemic and staying laser focused on protecting the small group of Americans that are at higher risk, and that is dairy and poultry workers right now.

• John Yang:

  Another thing that's caught a lot of people's attention was the report that the FDA had found dead viral fragments in milk bought at grocery stores. That sounds pretty scary. How concerned should people be about that?

• Katelyn Jetelina:

  It is scary, and it does sound scary. But I calmed down when I knew that we have over 100 years of data on effectiveness of pasteurization. Also, just to confirm that the pasteurization was working, the FDA tried to grow active virus from these pasteurized milk samples from grocery stores, and the experiments failed, which is actually a good thing, because that means these viral fragments were broken pieces that just could not replicate and thus cannot harm us humans.

  Since those studies have been done on the milk, they've also tested other milk products like cottage cheese and sour cream. And those are say, as well as beef in grocery stores is also safe to consume. I think the bottom line here is just do not drink unpasteurized milk. It can make you very sick, especially at this time.

• John Yang:

  So that's bird flu. Let's talk about COVID. Tell us about these new variants that have the intriguing nickname flirt.

• Katelyn Jetelina:

  Yeah. So what we know is that COVID continues to mutate. Right. This is just what viruses do. The latest and greatest variant is Omicron, but with very small changes. Right. Flirt variants have only two additional mutations on the spike protein. This is compared to about 50 changes that we saw with the huge Omicron wave back in 2021.

  So just with two small changes, we know that this isn't going to cause a tsunami of infection. It's just not different enough than previous ones. The question is whether it will cause a wave or wavelet or nothing at all. Unfortunately, time will just tell.

• John Yang:

  So only two mutations. Does that mean that if you got a booster last fall or since last fall, that would take care of it? That those variants would not be able to get around that booster?

• Katelyn Jetelina:

  If you're up to date on your COVID-19 vaccine, which for the majority of people means a fall vaccine, some are eligible for a spring vaccine. And, yeah, it's not a perfect match, but it will certainly help against severe disease and death because this has mutated a little. That may mean we'll see a little more infections than before, but you are very well protected against severe disease. If you're up to date.

• John Yang:

  Is the COVID vaccine going to continue to be reformulated and keep up with these variants and sort of almost like the annual flu, they have to figure out what the dominant strain is going to be?

• Katelyn Jetelina:

  Yeah, that's exactly right. It looks like we're moving towards a flu model. Right. So where COVID-19 vaccines will be updated every year to match as best as possible the circulating strain. The FDA meeting is actually next month is mid-June, to make a final decision on what exact strain is in that vaccine. But to the general public, know that you can definitely expect an updated vaccine this fall again.

• John Yang:

  Measles. There was a global surge in measles. There was some talk earlier that the United States was worried about what was going to happen here. What is happening with measles here in the United States?

• Katelyn Jetelina:

  Yeah, I mean, measles is coming in hot this year. And while the U.S. has a small number of cases, right, 132 cases across 21 states, it's still more than double than we had last year. I think the biggest problem with this is we're giving measles opportunity to spark more. Right. With more embers, because fewer people are getting vaccinated.

  And the challenge and problem with this is it just increases the probability of a spark, finding a really large unvaccinated pocket and spreading like wildfire. So we are really wanting to reduce these embers as much as possible right now.

• John Yang:

  Back to COVID with the ebbing of the pandemic that a lot of these requirements are going away. And just recently, the requirement for hospitals to report data about COVID hospitalizations ended. They no longer have to report that information. As an epidemiologist, does that concern you?

• Katelyn Jetelina:

  It's incredibly concerning because it feels like we are kind of going back to our pre pandemic times. It was incredibly important to have hospitalization data to understand where we need to be concerned, where action needs to take place, or, like right now, that hospitalizations are really low and we can relax a little.

  I think the positive news, though, is that Health and Human Services is proposing a new rule that all hospitalizations continue to report COVID-19 as well as other viruses, starting on October 1 during non-emergency times.

  And it's certainly open for public comment. But I'm optimistic that this reporting will continue, which will allow us to have a really nice national picture on what is going on with viruses at the moment.

• John Yang:

  Katelyn Jetelina, thank you very much.

• Katelyn Jetelina:

  Yeah, thanks for having me.