President Donald Trump celebrated the bill’s passage, calling it “arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country.” Trump appealed to the Senate to pass the measure as soon as possible and send it to his desk.
“We just don’t know why there haven’t been cases,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University. “I think we should assume there are infections that are occurring in farmworkers that just aren’t being detected.”among wild birds, poultry and other animals around the world for several years, and starting early last year became a problem in people and cows in the U.S.
In the last 14 months, infections have been reported in 70 people in the U.S. — most of them workers on dairy and poultry farms. One person died, but most of the infected people had mild illnesses.The most recent infections confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were in early February inCalifornia had been a hotspot, with three-quarters of the nation’s infections in dairy cattle. But testing and cases among people have fallen off. At least 50 people were tested each month in late 2024, but just three people were tested in March, one in April and none in May so far, state records show. Overall, the state has confirmed H5N1 infections in 38 people, none after Jan. 14.
During a call with U.S. doctors this month, one CDC official noted that there is a seasonality to bird flu: Cases peak in the fall and early winter, possibly due to the migration patterns of wild birds that are primary spreaders of the virus.That could mean the U.S. is experiencing a natural — maybe temporary — decline in cases.
It’s unlikely that a severe human infection, requiring hospitalization, would go unnoticed, said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases.
What’s more, a patchwork system that monitors viruses in sewage and wastewater has suggestedWhen it does come to economics, the discussion of whether or not there should be pennies is actually part of a larger conversation, says Ursula Dalinghaus, an assistant professor of anthropology at Ripon College in Wisconsin who studies the anthropology of money.
For example, a bedrock of American culture is the price tag ending in $.99, somehow trying to convince buyers that the 1-cent difference keeping the cost from the next dollar makes it a good deal, she points out. What happens to that price now?Also, while many people have switched over to digital forms of payments and couldn’t even tell you the last time they carried a coin around or had a bill in their wallets, there are many people who still use all kinds of physical currency — yes, even pennies.
“Cash is very important for a lot of people to budget, to keep control of costs. Even just donating a penny to someone asking for small change, it does add up,” she says. “I feel like we’re far too quick to only look at what is the cost of minting it or distributing it and we’re not really willing to look at the everyday experiences and interactions people have. So maybe if we don’t use small change, we don’t think about it. But other people do.”In a final irony, news of the penny’s fate came out on the eve of Lucky Penny Day, no less! (Yes, there is such a thing, on May 23rd.)