Why did we call on our readers
To tell us if we knew any US cattle farmers?
Yesterday we put a bit of a teazer post.
We asked if anyone was a cattle farmer in the United States of America. We received a few baffled answers, both private and public. Why did we do this very strange thing?
The answer can be found in the publication in January of this preprint:
A mathematical model of H5N1 influenza transmission in US dairy cattle
Thomas Rawson, Christian Morgenstern, Edward S. Knock, Joseph Hicks, Anh Pham, Guillaume Morel, Aurelio Cabezas Murillo, Mike Sanderson, Giovanni Forchini, RichardFitzJohn, Katharina Hauck, Neil Ferguson.
medRxiv 2025.01.28.25321250; doi:https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.28.25321250
Spot anyone you know? You can access the preprint here. Now that we have a clearer picture of the events surrounding avian influenza, we would like to hear your thoughts on what you think is happening.
To help you understand the H5N1 model, we offer its 25-year-old predecessor, which some may recall.
The text starts from page 2: So what are your thoughts?
Ths post was written by two old geezers who aren’t easily fooled.
"We present a stochastic metapopulation transmission model that simulates the spread of H5N1 avian influenza through individual dairy cows in 35,974 dairy herds in the continental United States."
TRANSLATION: ...... here are some numbers we just made up ..............
hopefully those making up the current US administration will be a little more wary of the wily ways of our boy, Fergie .......
Given the last-named author, the paper is 100% certain (that's a _safe and effective_ 100%) to be... total rubbish.