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Boston's Morning Newsletter
Should I be worried about bird flu in Mass. — or in my milk? A local expert weighs in
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The nine-day closure of the middle of the Red Line is now officially underway. Click here for more details on the diversion, whether you’re shuttling, biking or commuter rail-ing your way around it.
But first, the news:
Got (safe) milk? You’ve probably seen the headlines about the outbreak of bird flu in dairy cattle — and traces of the virus even showing up in commercially sold milk. But according to a local infectious disease expert, you shouldn’t freak out. At least not right now. “This is a moment where there needs to be concern and urgency among public health experts,” Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, the founding director of BU’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases, told WBUR’s Fausto Menard. “But I don’t think it’s a moment where there needs to be concern or alarm for the general population about H5N1.”
- What’s going on with the outbreak? So far, H5N1 has been reported in nine states (none in the Northeast) and the only confirmed human case was a Texas dairy worker. Bhadelia says it was a “mild case” that “resolved pretty quickly” with an antiviral. The leading theory is the worker got the virus while milking an infected cow or from milking equipment.
- What about my milk? Unless you’re drinking raw milk, it should be fine. Milk at grocery stores in Massachusetts is required to be pasteurized. And that process kills heat-sensitive viruses like bird flu — the traces left behind don’t appear to be infectious. (To make that clear, one virologist who incidentally bought milk that tested positive for H5N1 fragments told NPR he kept it.)
- What should I worry about long-term? Before COVID, bird flu was the disease that kept epidemiologists up at night, Bhadelia says. It has an ability to quickly mutate to infect different species of mammals (46 in total, so far) and has caused “mass amounts of deaths” in some of them. “The closer those animals are to us humans in terms of how their lungs function, how their immune systems function, the greater the concern that the virus is moving towards … a point where it could efficiently infect and transmit between humans,” she said.
- Go deeper: As the outbreak unfolds, here are four big questions scientists are trying to answer.
CCC clash: After months of delay, a disciplinary hearing for suspended Cannabis Control Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien is set to begin this morning. As WBUR’s Walter Wuthmann reports, state Treasurer Deb Goldberg will weigh whether to fire O’Brien, a former ally and state treasurer herself, after the two-day hearing (and yes, it’s closed door, despite O’Brien’s protests).
- Catch up: Goldberg suspended O’Brien in September, accusing her of making “racially, ethnically and culturally insensitive” remarks and mistreating staff. O’Brien argues she’s being undermined by CCC staff, and is the “latest casualty” of the agency’s dysfunction.
- Go deeper: CommonWealth Beacon talked to three academic experts about whether O’Brien’s comments merit her firing.
Read her lips: Despite the state’s “choppy” revenue outlook, Gov. Maura Healey says she has “no plans to propose new taxes or raise existing ones.” Healey made the comments during a speech yesterday to local business leaders, telling reporters the pledge stands “for the foreseeable future,” State House News Service reports.
- Doesn’t Healey’s housing bond bill include a provision that would allow cities and towns to impose a small tax on real estate sales over $1 million? True! But she suggests the pledge does not apply to taxes levied by municipal governments.
A boomerang that isn’t coming back: Boomerangs — a local thrift store chain dedicated to supporting HIV and AIDs care — is closing all three of its stores in June. The chain’s operator, Fenway Health, cited “significant financial losses” over the past six years.
- Zoom out: Boomerangs opened its doors in the mid-90s, and revenue from sales have gone directly to AIDS research and community care.
- Zoom in: The stores in Boston’s Jamaica Plain, the South End and Cambridge’s Central Square aren’t closed quite yet (those dates are still TBD), but they are no longer accepting donations.
P.S.— As the Celtics finished off the shorthanded Miami Heat last night, the team also said farewell to longtime announcer Mike Gorman. After 43 years of calling Celtics games, he’s retiring this year. The rest of the NBA playoff will be carried solely on ESPN and TNT, so last night was Gorman’s last game (and he got a standing ovation from the crowd). You can watch his final signoff to fans here.
