On Monday, California became the 14th state to report outbreaks of bird flu in dairy cows. Some have wondered how the Golden State avoided an outbreak thus far in the bird flu crisis, after nearly 200 outbreaks have been reported from Colorado to Texas to Michigan. It’s especially puzzling given that California is the nation’s largest dairy producer. "It seemed like it might be only a matter of time,” Terry Lehenbauer, a bovine disease epidemiologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, told Stat News last week. Now that time has arrived.
In late August, cows at three dairy farms in the Central Valley displayed symptoms for highly pathogenic avian influenza and later tested positive, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. No humans have been reported infected.
