USDA just updated its page with THIRTEEN new herds infected since their last update.
The new herd infections are in South Dakota, Michigan and Idaho, with Idaho logging the most at 8 new herds infected.
Several of the infections were confirmed by a NVSL on the 28th, which is last Tuesday, so the USDA is continuing its pattern of untimely updates while saying "Data updated weekday by 4 pm ET."
That makes 80 herds with confirmed infections in 9 states.
Another dairy worker, this one in Michigan, has tested positive for H5N1 after showing signs of illness. Like the two others, this person had eye symptoms. Unlike the others, this person had a productive cough. If it is infecting human respiratory tissues, that isn't good, as coughing makes someone far more likely to spread the disease onward.
Looks like the beginning of the eruption started about 2h45m ago and was presages by a swarm of 2-300 tremors. Similar pattern to prior eruptions with a large rift opening up and rapidly expanding in size. Lot of magma pressure behind this at the start and it is shooting magma high into the air. Lots of volcanic gassing.
This is what the ground deformation data looked like from space immediately prior to the eruption, with over a quarter meter of bulge in the central area. As I said yesterday, the land was positively pregnant and ready to pop.
It sounds like the Trident pier itself may have been beached/grounded. The ability of the US military to execute JLOTS at this location on an ongoing basis has really been called into question. This just isn't a good system for delivering aid by boat.
This is your periodic reminder that the Israeli port of Ashdod lies just to the North of Gaza. Also, World Central Kitchen has a functional jetty which they used twice to deliver barges of aid at the same place where the US is doing their JLOTS. Maybe just switch to using the jetty! You know...the stationary structure which doesn't need anchor cables and which isn't subject to being driven off by wind and waves?
As usual, the "What's is Going on With Shipping?" channel has informed ongoing coverage of the JLOTS debacle (which this channel rightly said was going to be a debacle for a long time).
He says this as someone with decades of experience as a merchant mariner and one who has participated in these sorts of JLOTS exercises.
Watching Israel horrifically kill 45 people in a nothing-but-tents "safe zone" refugee camp and then say "well, there were these Hamas guys" and the US response is "Israel said there were some Hamas guys" is just breaking me today. This was a flat out war crime. There is a principal in international law that requires the least minimal action to achieve an objective. Dropping a giant bomb to kill a soldier while killing or injuring hundreds is not justified under international law.
@Infoseepage The US has done the same thing in so many parts of the world. Two possibilities. One, by defending Israel, it's probably defending its past actions. Two, the US policy makers really believe that people with European blood are the only valuable lives.
We've currently got 2 confirmed dairy worker H5N1/HPAI infections in 2 months from 52 confirmed infected dairy herds. There were 27,932 dairy herds in the US as of 2002. Back of the napkin math tells me that if all those herds became infected, one would expect dairy workers to become infected at a rate of around 537 workers a month, but we're of course taking stringent measures to ensure more dairy herds don't get infected right? Right? Right?
Some of the turtles I saw today while on my walk. I like turtles. Turtles are cool. Did you know you can often sex a turtle by the shape of their plastron? That's the bottom part of their shell. In males, it is usually concave, as that allows them to more easily mount females during mating, as the tops of shells are curved. Cool turtle fact, eh?
I wish the world wasn't so shitty right now so I could concentrate on turtle facts.
The US has not airdropped any food over Gaza since May 9th. The total dropped by the US in total since March 2nd is 1220 ton. By the second week of the Berlin Airlift, the US had delivered more and by week three was dropping more tonnage daily than the US has dropped in total in more than 2 months. In fact, at its peak, the US and the UK were dropping close to 13000 tons A DAY to supply West Berlin with its food and fuel needs.
Per US Centcom, the US doesn't appear to have done any airdrops of food since the 9th. The effort was always meager in the extreme, but right now essentially zero aid is flowing into Gaza.
Hörður Kristleifsson posted another of his 360 degree aerial panoramas of the eruption site in Iceland. This one was taken right after the eruption officially ended and you can seen down into the splatter cone, now devoid of lava.
Very cool and neat tool for getting an idea of the ground coverage this cycle of eruption produced.
The Icelandic Met has issued a new bulletin about magma buildup in the Svartsengi area. Their current estimate of magma buildup based on surface deformation/land rise is 14 million cubic meters, which is equal or greater to the amounts which previously triggered eruptions in the area. They're advising that another eruption may be imminent and with very little warning, as the ground is already heavily fractured.
In Iceland, they're in the process of building a second set of magma defense berms on Grindavik's eastern flanks. The primary berm system has been overflowed twice in recent weeks and lava piled up behind the existing berms is taller than the berms now across much of their length.
The new berms will be 6 meters high and offset from the original ones by about 120 meters.
The problem as I see it is there isn't really a way for this new berm system to rechannel/divert lava which spills over elsewhere. It's more forming a "catchment basin" with with a fixed dimension and volume. When it's full, it's full.
Right now, it's what they can do. Mother nature doesn't argue, she simply does what she does. Will she keep spewing out lava in this location for years?
Rafah has twice the population density of the Warsaw Ghetto at its peak during WWII and Israel is telling people to evacuate or its not their fault if they die. Actually it is, Rafah is right up against the Egyptian border and there's nowhere left in Gaza that hasn't been substantially bombed by Israel.
55% of the buildings in the whole of Gaza are damaged or destroyed.
So, the Eurovision song contest kicked off today with opening ceremonies. This year's contest is particularly controversial due to the inclusion of Israel (notably not a European nation) and their attempts to submit a song which appeared to reference the October Hamas attacks. Political songs are not allowed in Eurovision.
I've been mostly watching news on the contest through following Icelandic papers as part of my fascination with the ongoing eruption there.
Iceland's coverage has been interesting as a poll showed that the majority of the country wanted Iceland to boycott the competition because of Israel's inclusion. Ultimately, the broadcaster elected to go on. There were also some controversial voting hijinx in Iceland's selection process, with the final selected performer being one who wanted to perform regardless. Some of the other candidates telegraphed if they were selected as Iceland's entry that they'd personally boycott.