Based on reported data, cases in dairy herds appear to be relatively rare in recent months. A USDA program set up during the Biden administration to detect bird flu in dairy milk remains in place, as do rules that require cattle to be tested before they move across state lines.

But it’s unclear how much routine testing is actually being done in cattle — and some like Lakdawala speculate the reported decline in cases could be due to a lack of testing.

The business model for dairy farms relies on moving cattle between farms, and new research from Lakdawala’s team offers a sobering picture of why it’s so hard to stamp out the virus on a farm.

They found it’s pervasive — in the air of the milking parlor, all over the equipment, even in waste streams that sometimes get used to clean the housing facilities for the cattle.

Cows are “expelling it in their milk at such high levels,” including animals that may have few or no symptoms, she says. “There is so much virus in the environment, these cows are bombarded with it. Of course, they’re going to become infected.”

real “no way around this, says farmers who live in a country that has multiple dairy alternatives but routinely forcibly impregnate and milk cows regularly & has a standardized practice of sending these milk producing cows to other farms” hours lmao