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Comment by newzisforsukas | Hacker News Reader

> 55 symptomatic poultry workers tested by CDPHE as of Friday

Seems like that is a lot of people?

That’s the people who had any symptoms of anything at all who were in the test set. Only three of them tested positive, for a grand total of 5 cases since May 2022. Yellow journalism at its finest.

Edit - shows we didn't read the article properly, which states the 48 are not yet returned- from the article:

On Friday, the CDPHE returned with a larger team to the site and tested 48 additional symptomatic workers, a spokesperson said in an email to Denver7 Friday evening. "The test results from samples collected today (July 12) are still pending," the spokesperson added, saying those samples will be tested this weekend.

--- previous post - - - At least according to twitter (which may or may not be correct) - the results for 48 of the 55 are not yet available, so only 4 people have had a negative test so far, and 5 have been positive.

-- 2nd edit - - Looks like you edited your previous post, where you claimed the 48 tested negative. Posting this here for completeness so that my post makes sense.

Nobody has tested positive since the 2 from 2022. The three counted in this article are what’s known as “presumptive positive”, which is a different term reserved for those who have not tested positive.

It’s just another scare tactic, one which saw heavy exploitation in the COVID era. I personally tested presumptive positive once: they treated me as though the test was positive and prohibited me from receiving medical care. In fact it was explicitly not positive, I never experienced any symptoms, and they relented and let me recover the procedure some number of weeks later – with no change in testing.

edit: I neither made nor recanted any claims as to the positivity of the other 48 in my first comment, I do not know why you are asserting I edited claims out.

"Presumptive positive" means that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has tested them positive, but the CDC has not yet confirmed it.

Not at all. It means Colorado DPHE has performed a test and concluded the subject requires further testing by the CDC before any diagnosis can be made.

These are well documented established protocols created by domain expert scientists folks, let’s not completely ignore them for the purposes of FUD.

Fwiw - 2 more people tested positive.

Here is a list of everyone that has tested positive (world wide) since 2021: https://bnonews.com/index.php/human-cases-of-h5n1-bird-flu/

Just another scare tactic? Why would any of these orgs (other than the news) intentionally be scaring you?

Their funding is very directly tied to how big of a deal people consider the issues they’re tasked with to be. You ever see a government bureaucrat argue “the mission my agency handles is really easy and not very important, we could make do with a much smaller budget without any downside for the people”?

No, but I also don’t think a government agency gets created in the first place for a small mission

Initially, sure. But the incentives of everyone involved are aligned to make the organization tend to grow in budget and scope bounded only by the public’s willingness to pay for it. The more they can convince the public to pay, the more money there is to go around. Fear happens to be a great motivation to this effect, and unscrupulous bureaucrats have been quick to find every opportunity to jump on that.

Wouldn't this make it seven since April of this year?

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