Dr Ruth's COVID & Health news 2/10/25

Here is another jam-packed issue of Dr Ruth Ann Crystal's latest newsletter:  COVID & Health news, 2/10/25.

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COVID & Health news, 2/10/25

"Please check out a special issue of my newsletter that I posted on Saturday summarizing most of the actions from the Trump administration last week, including important changes at the NIH, the Treasury, USAID, Medicare and Medicaid, and other US government agencies. TLDR: Trump is distracting people with talk of the US taking over Gaza and writing Executive Orders to divert attention from Musk and his young hackers who have access to US payment systems.

"Today, attorneys general from 22 states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration asking a federal judge to temporarily stop a significant National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy change posted on Friday evening that would drastically reduce indirect costs funding for research overhead at universities and medical centers.

Important thread from David Putrino:

Respiratory Illnesses

"As of February 7, 2025, the amount of acute respiratory illness causing people to seek healthcare is at a very high level. Seasonal Flu cases are VERY HIGH and are continuing to increase. The CDC estimates at least 24 million have gotten Influenza, resulting in 310,000 hospitalizations and 13,000 deaths from the flu so far this season. This is the worst flu season in 15 years according to the CDC. You can now buy a home rapid antigen test for COVID, Flu A and Flu B. If you are at higher risk from the flu because of pregnancy, asthma, chronic lung disease, diabetes or heart disease, the CDC recommends taking the antiviral Tamiflu to reduce risks, and shorten the time that one is sick.

From: https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data/index.html

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COVID

"Emergency department visits for COVID have stopped decreasing and have plateaued. SARS-CoV-2 is HIGH in all places except the West where it is MODERATE. Wastewater levels of SARS-CoV-2 appear to be increasing in the Northeast and in the South, but are plateauing in the Midwest this week. According to JP Weiland, there are 540,000 new COVID infections each day in America and every 1 in 62 people is currently infected with SARS-CoV-2.

"As of February 1st, Arizona, Nebraska, South Carolina and Connecticut are VERY HIGH for SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater per the CDC. Iowa COVID levels are also VERY HIGH according to Sara Anne Willette. In California, most places have low to medium levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater with the exception of SF Oceanside and San Rafael which are HIGH for SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater now.

COVID Emergency Room visits https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#ed-visits_all_ages_combined

SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater per CDC

From: CDC wastewater reporting: https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-nationaltrend.html

SARS-CoV-2 Variants

"In the United States, data through February 1 shows that XEC is stable at about 40 to 43% of COVID cases, while LP.8.1 is increasing modestly and represents about 20% of US cases with about 30% frequency in New York and New Jersey. Worldwide, SARS-CoV-2 variants are similar with XEC and LP.8.1 representing most cases.

Seniors

"A study from Bogota, Columbia shows that elderly patients who died from COVID-19 had more pathogenic bacteria in their airways including Klebsiella pneumoniae and periodontal bacteria. Pathogenic bacteria and those that cause gum disease may worsen immune responses in severe cases of COVID.

Pediatrics

"A study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that Long COVID rates in U.S. children remained stable in 2022 and 2023, with 1.4% of kids ever experiencing Long COVID symptoms and 0.4% (300,000 children) currently having LC symptoms at the time of the survey. Older children (12–17 years) and those from lower-income families were more likely to report Long COVID symptoms. Among children currently experiencing Long COVID, 80% reported activity limitations, highlighting the need for further research on Long COVID’s impact on daily life and school attendance.

Vaccines

"In 2022, Washington University licensed their nasal spray COVID vaccine to Bharat Biotech in India. The nasal COVID vaccine will now be tested in a Phase I clinical trial in the United States under a license from Ocugen. Nasal vaccines can block SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission.

"A new study shows that the updated KP.2 mRNA COVID vaccines introduced in September are effective against the latest SARS-CoV-2 variants including KP.3.1.1 and XEC. The study showed a strong immune response, suggesting the updated booster helps address the immune imprinting issues seen with previous bivalent vaccines.

Antiviral treatments

"Obeldesivir is an oral version of Remdesivir. A Phase I trial of Obeldesivir shows that it was well tolerated, had only mild to moderate adverse events, and has low potential for drug–drug interactions. Obeldesivir's broad antiviral activity and favorable safety profile make it a promising treatment option for several viruses including SARS-CoV-2.

COVID Heart Risks

"A new study published in Radiology found that mild COVID infection accelerates plaque growth in coronary arteries, increasing the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular events. Using coronary CT angiography (CCTA), researchers analyzed 2,588 artery lesions and found that those who had had a mild COVID infection had a higher incidence of high-risk plaques and coronary inflammation compared to uninfected individuals up to 12 months after acute infection. The study suggests that lingering viral fragments or post-COVID inflammation may contribute to long-term heart risks, highlighting the need for ongoing cardiovascular monitoring and potential preventive treatments like anti-inflammatory drugs or statins.

From: https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.240876

"In another study, 343 people who had mild or asymptomatic COVID infections, subtle but significant heart function changes were seen on transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) at 3 months and 12 months after infection. Though not clinically obvious on the individual level, differences in heart function on ultrasound were linked to lingering cardiac symptoms. These findings suggest that even after mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 infections, individuals might experience changes in heart function that are not immediately noticeable. The study highlights the importance of monitoring heart health after mild or asymptomatic COVID infections.

Long COVID

"A group from Belgium looked at blood markers in Long COVID patients including serum D-dimer, HbA1c, ALT, AST, Creatinine, eGFR, CRP, Troponin T HS, WBC, Platelets, a cytokine panel and PBMCs for Telomere length, mtDNAcn, LINE-1 DNA methylation. They included Long COVID patients who had prior severe COVID infections (hospitalization and ICU in some), 30 Long COVID patients who had mild acute COVID infections and recovered controls. Long COVID patients were stratified by symptom into 6 clusters: PEM-fatigue (post-exertional malaise (PEM), fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, muscle weakness, and pain), Cognitive dysfunction, Autonomic symptoms (unsteadiness when standing, cold hands and feet, and unexplainable hot–cold feelings), Visceral problems (GI bloating, stomach-ache, and irritable bowel symptoms), Neurological symptoms (headache and sensitivity to light, noise, and smells), Immune disturbances (sore throat and flu-like symptoms).

"In the 21 patients in the PEM-fatigue Long COVID cluster, troponin T in serum was significantly increased, and telomere length, and mtDNAcn (mitochondrial DNA copy number) were significantly decreased in PBMCs months after COVID infection. The authors concluded that cardiac involvement (as measured by troponin T levels) and telomere shortening might be risk factors for developing PEM-fatigue symptoms.

"Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a hormone produced by the heart that helps regulate blood pressure and fluid balance. Researchers from Japan found that elevated plasma BNP levels were associated with fatigue, shortness of breath, palpitations, taste and/or olfactory disorders and memory impairment in some Long COVID patients.

"A Stanford study of 526 Long COVID patients found that 72% experienced chronic autonomic dysfunction lasting over three years, with symptoms like dizziness, rapid heartbeat, and blood pressure fluctuations. About one-third were diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a condition characterized by an abnormal increase in heart rate upon standing, with a higher prevalence among women and individuals with joint hypermobility. Many struggled to work due to symptoms. These findings underscore the long-term impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the autonomic nervous system and the need for ongoing monitoring and management of autonomic dysfunction in Long COVID patients.

"A group from Malaysia reviewed how gut microbiota imbalances and chronic inflammation can affect different Long COVID subtypes. Probiotics have the potential to mitigate some Long COVID symptoms by restoring gut microbiome balance and by modulating the immune response. The paper reviews six clinical studies on probiotics as a potential therapeutic intervention including a randomized, double-blinded clinical trial from Hong Kong that showed that a synbiotic containing prebiotics and 3 probiotic bacteria (B. adolescentis, B. bifidum, and B. longum) significantly reduced Long COVID symptoms.

From: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753332225000496

"A group from the UK tested 1064 people (39% had Long COVID) with an online memory test. They found that Long COVID significantly impairs working memory, especially in those with a clinical diagnosis, with cognitive deficits worsening with age, multiple COVID infections, and longer illness duration. Participants with severe brain fog and a greater impact on daily life had the lowest memory scores, and those infected with earlier COVID-19 variants (alpha and wild-type) showed the most prolonged memory decline.

H5N1

"For the first time, the more dangerous D1.1 genotype of H5N1 bird flu was detected in four cattle herds in Nevada. This indicates a new spillover of the H5N1 avian flu virus from birds to cows. Before this, only the B3.13 genotype which causes mild disease in humans was found in cattle. The D1.1 genotype has caused severe illness in humans including a Canadian teen who was in the ICU on ECMO for weeks and the Louisiana patient who died of H5N1.

"As mentioned in my newsletter from Saturday, the Trump administration has taken unprecedented steps to control the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) after stopping the publication for 2 weeks. Political appointees including acting CDC Director Susan Monarez removed 3 studies on the spread of H5N1 bird flu this week, instead reporting on California wildfires. The CDC MMWR post on bird flu transmission between cats and people was briefly posted and then removed on Wednesday according to the NY Times. Ironically, the MMWR article on wildfires “accidentally” included this chart showing transmission of H5N1 from humans to pet cats and vice versa.

Two cases of H5N1 in San Mateo County

"San Mateo County confirmed its first case of H5N1 bird flu in a backyard poultry flock in San Mateo this week. On Thursday, officials confirmed another case of H5N1 avian flu in a stray cat in Half Moon Bay. No human infections have been linked to these cases. People who find sick or dead birds or other animals should report it to a vet or to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Sick Bird Hotline at (866) 922-BIRD (2473).

Other news:

"Please check out my special issue of the newsletter on Government Updates and Health from Saturday at https://drruth.substack.com/p/special-issue-government-updates.

"There is a measles outbreak in West Texas in a county where 20% of kindergartners are not vaccinated. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases that exists. About 1 in 5 unvaccinated people in the United States who get measles will be hospitalized, according to the CDC.

"Homestead Cottage in County Clare, Ireland is located in a “200-year-old cottage in the middle of nowhere”. This new restaurant in a remote village was given a Michelin star and some people say that it is one of the best restaurants in all of Ireland.

Photo: Anthony O’Connor/Five Element Photography

"Jackie and Shadow are two bald eagles who are the stars of a nest cam in Big Bear, California. They recently welcomed their third egg of the year. I’ve had fun watching the pair take turns sitting on their eggs to incubate them in the snow and now the sunshine.

"Have a good week,

"Ruth Ann Crystal MD"

New Bird Flu Mutation

From Carolyn Barber at Fortune Well, 2/8/25:

New bird flu variant found in Nevada dairy cows has experts sounding alarms: ‘We have never been closer to a pandemic from this virus’"

"The disclosure that dairy herds in Nevada have been infected by a version of the H5N1 bird flu not previously seen in cows, has put virologists and researchers on high alert. Among other things, the news from the Nevada Department of Agriculture, suggests that driving the virus out of the U.S. cattle population won’t be nearly as simple as federal officials once suggested—or perhaps hoped.

"On Friday came a second and potentially more serious blow: A technical brief by the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the genotype, known as D1.1, contains a genetic mutation that may help the virus more easily copy itself in mammals—including humans.

"This D1.1 version of the virus is the same variant that killed a man in Louisiana and left a Canadian teen hospitalized in critical condition. It is not the B3.13 genotype widely found in sick cattle dating to early last year.

“This can be of significant concern if this virus continues to spread among cows and infects more people,” immunologist and former federal health official Rick Bright tells Fortune. “This mutation has not been associated with improved human transmission, so there are no telling signs of enhanced spread yet. But when this virus gets into people, it is ready to cause a much more serious disease than the (B3.13) virus that has been circulating in cows before now.

“We have never been closer to a pandemic from this virus,” Bright adds. “And we still are not doing everything possible to prevent it or reduce the impact if it hits.”

"The D1.1 genotype has been detected in wild birds in all North American flyways, as well as mammals and poultry, so it isn’t surprising that it’s made the leap to cows. But its newfound presence in the Nevada dairy herds is considered by many virologists to mark a sort of inflection point in the spread of H5N1, and it could spell more trouble for humans going forward.

“Given the fact that D1.1 seems to be more virulent in humans, this could indicate a major change in terms of public health risks from the earlier scenario with the B3.13 strain,” veterinary science pioneer Juergen Richt, Director of the National Institutes of Health Center on Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, tells Fortune.

"In response to an emailed series of questions, a spokesperson for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the agency still deems the risk to human health for the general public to be low. “However, people with close, prolonged, or unprotected exposures to infected birds or other animals (including livestock), or to environments contaminated by infected birds or other animals, are at greater risk of infection,” the spokesperson said.

"The USDA on Friday noted that although the Nevada cattle did not display clinical signs of infection prior to its detection via testing, such signs have since been reported, along with die-offs of a large number of wild birds near the affected dairies.

"Should humans be taking more precautions? What is the scope of the risk? And are there mitigating actions that should already be in place on America’s farms and dairies?

"The urgency of those questions suggests that in the coming weeks, an absolute premium should be placed upon the timely dissemination of information and testing updates from the federal sources upon which researchers and health officials often rely. But that information flow is no longer to be taken for granted.

"On Jan. 21, under orders from the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) placed a freeze on almost all external communications, including documents and health guidance, until a Trump-appointed official could be installed and approve them. Such a move is not unprecedented, but when the information freeze blew past its Feb. 1 deadline without being fully lifted, Democratic leaders began crying foul.

"One important casualty of that action was the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The MMWR, as it’s known, is a critical source of information on public health issues. The MMWR failed to publish for the first time in more than sixty years on January 23rd and again on January 30th. Publication did resume on February 6th, but there was no mention of bird flu nor any information about the three H5N1 studies which were scheduled to be published in January according to the Washington Post.

"Further, per the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is reportedly planning to eliminate the jobs of thousands of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) employees. Senior public-health officials are reportedly being told to rank employees based on how critical their roles are.

"Depending upon where those cuts land across the various agencies of the department, practices like tracing bird-flu outbreaks and approving new drugs could be affected. And Trump’s nominee to run HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in 2023 said he’d tell federal health scientists, “Thank you for your public service. We’re going to give [studying] infectious diseases a break for about eight years.”

"These developments have ramped up the concern of scientists and researchers tracking the spread of H5N1, which, according to the CDC, has now infected 959 dairy herds in the U.S. and been responsible for the death of 156 million poultry, sending the price of eggs to record highs because of scarce supply.

"Researchers are also loudly asking whether dairy workers should be vaccinated using existing supplies from the federal stock of bird flu vaccine, and whether personal protective equipment should become mandatory on dairy farms and egg-laying facilities for frontline workers.

"This all comes back to the timely flow of information and communication—and, experts say, it is being throttled at a critical moment.

“This is chilling but not at all surprising, given the gag put on scientists and the manipulation of scientific communication in 2020 at the start of the COVID pandemic,” says Bright, a vaccine researcher who filed a whistleblower complaint against the Trump administration in 2020 and has been urging health officials for months to ramp up testing and precautions around bird flu.

“When it happened in 2020,” Bright says, “it slowed the response, sowed distrust in science and public health, and as a consequence many more people died during that time. It is horrifying that lessons were not learned, and we find ourselves in the same or worse situation–not only on H5N1, but on numerous ongoing outbreaks in the U.S.”

"A Nevada official tells Fortune that the new cases of D1.1 in cows were traced to dairy farms in Churchill County, with six herds placed under quarantine. Previously, the state’s agriculture director, J.J. Goicoechea, told Reuters, “We obviously aren’t doing everything we can and everything we should, or the virus wouldn’t be getting in.” Goicoechea said Nevada farmers needed to follow “good animal health safety practices and bolster biosecurity measures” for their animals.

"Where does this all leave humans? According to University of Saskatchewan virologist Angela Rasmussen, the development in Nevada doesn’t directly increase the likelihood of human-to-human transmission, but rather “increases risk of zoonotic human cases—that is, from cows to farmworkers. Beyond that, it is D1.1’s ability to mutate (perhaps in ways B3.13 has not mutated) that concerns researchers. That adaptability may allow the virus to more easily spread from person to person.

“This new genotype of H5N1 virus, D1.1 was associated with more severe illness and death in the few known human infections,” Bright says. “It (the Nevada case) is a significant event, because we now know how easily H5N1 viruses can spread among dairy cows, from farm to farm, jump from milk to other mammals, including mice and cats, and even infect people.”

"Federal health agencies have taken “some positive steps” in recent months to increase testing via a National Milk Testing Strategy, and of testing and subtyping influenza in people, says James Lawler, director of the University of Nebraska’s Global Center for Health Security.

“To better control risk, however, we should aggressively ramp up testing and isolation of affected dairy herds and animals, facilitate more widespread surveillance and testing in people, and accelerate vaccine development and production,” Lawler says. Clinicians also need to know that the virus is circulating, Bright says, and to “test for influenza, not guess.”

"Scott Hensley, a viral immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, agrees. “We need to closely monitor D1.1 viruses because they have already shown the ability to adapt and cause severe disease in humans,” Hensley says. “Our H5N1 vaccine stocks are well matched to the D1.1 viruses and would likely provide high levels of protection—we need to ramp up H5N1 vaccine production in case these viruses evolve to spread from human to human.”

"In the meantime, Richt says, people need to avoid drinking raw milk, which might contain live virus from infected dairy cows, wash their hands often and report influenza-like illnesses, presumably so that tests can be run. States may follow the lead of California, where the governor declared a bird flu emergency and health officials have facilitated the distribution of millions of pieces of personal protective equipment to farmworkers.

"Every effort to contain the virus, though, ultimately will depend to a tremendous extent on the distribution of accurate and timely information—and a government and health community that commits to fighting bird flu and its concerning strains.

“There is a lot that we do not know about D1.1 viruses, and we will all be working overtime to learn more in the coming days and weeks,” Hensley says. It is the mass sharing of what experts learn that will be most critical in the fight."

Melanie Phillips: What Israel Is Really Up Against

Israeli hostages Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, and Ohad Ben Ami before and after their incarceration in Gaza

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Here is Melanie Phillips' latest column dated 2/10/25:

What Israel is really up against. It's no exaggeration to see the spectre of Nazism in the Palestinian cause

"For several days, all anybody could talk about was President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Gaza would be rebuilt as an American “Riviera”, a real-estate honeypot whose erstwhile inhabitants would be resettled in Jordan, Egypt and other countries where apparently they would build happy and productive new lives for themselves away from the shattered landscape of the Gaza war zone.

"Everyone was astounded; people were variously ecstatic, appalled, confused. Was Trump a genius or a lunatic? Did he mean it? What exactly did he mean? Would the Gazans be able to return to this prospective Monaco of the Middle East if they wanted to do so, or was Trump proposing to send them all into exile? Should we take what he was saying seriously but not literally? And if he did mean it literally, how would this actually be achieved?

"Then the three Israeli hostages, Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy, were brought out of hell. Now the kaleidoscope was shaken once again. And now grief and horror overwhelmed all else.

"The three released captives were unrecognisable from the men who had been seized on October 7 2023 and dragged into the dungeons of Gaza. They were emaciated, sunken-eyed, walking unsteadily. They had been starved and tortured.

"We now learn they were shackled inside a dark tunnel with no air or light; chained and unable to stand so that one of them had to be taught to walk again before being released; suffocated, hung upside down and burned; starved and then forced to eat rotten bread, and forced also to decide who among them would eat.

"Trump, who was clearly shaken and appalled by these images, observed that that three men “looked like Holocaust survivors” and said: “I don’t know how much longer we can take that”. He was clearly not just horrified but deeply, profoundly angry.

"At long last, this was a morally correct response by a western leader to current Jewish suffering. It was a vitally important response. It was the only decent response.

"Because the world has now seen graphic evidence of what Israel is up against.

"Trump’s Holocaust comparison is not an exaggeration. The three Israelis were living examples of the nightmarish images that are burned into the collective Jewish memory: the skeletal figures who were liberated from Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps in 1945, victims of monsters who had the same psychopathic aim as Hamas of exterminating the Jews.

"While we must always be careful not to downplay and thus misrepresent the unique horror of the Holocaust in both its scale and execution, the treatment of the Israelis is similar to the Nazi programme. It’s not just that the aim is the same. It’s that along with the murder, violence and starvation it also displays the hallmark characteristics of the Nazis — the sadism, the depraved barbarism, the desire to physically and psychologically torture and humiliate these captives just because they were Jews. That’s also what was on such conspicuous display in the pogrom of October 7 2023 when Israelis (and others) were slaughtered, raped, mutilated, tortured, beheaded and burned alive. And other Israeli captives are still being held in those Gaza torture chambers.

"Right on cue after Trump made his “Gaza Riviera” remarks, the west’s morally cretinous classes launched a collective cry of “ethnic cleansing” and “collective punishment” of the “ordinary Gaza civilians”. What hooey. The Gaza civilians should be held to account over collective responsibility for the atrocities against the Israelis.

"Not only did the “ordinary Gaza civilians” vote genocidal Hamas into power, but they are enthusiasts for the October 7 pogrom and for further atrocities against Israeli Jews. It was “ordinary Gaza civilians” who followed Hamas in pouring across the border fence on October 7 and who rampaged through the Israeli kibbutzim and the Supernova festival site raping, murdering and kidnapping Israelis. It was “ordinary Gaza civilians” who swarmed, taunted, humiliated and abused the Israelis kidnapped into Gaza and who desecrated the bodies of those who had been murdered, treating them as trophies of war.

"What’s more, the entire Gaza Strip was turned into a launching pad for genocide with an underground infrastructure composed of hundreds of miles of tunnels to create a parallel world devoted entirely to the mass murder of Jews. If there were any “ordinary Gaza civilians” who objected, they kept a very low profile.

"Israeli troops who risked their lives in clearing out Hamas have reported that virtually every house had a terrorist tunnel beneath it, virtually every house possessed a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and virtually every hospital, school and clinic was used as a weapons store or terrorist hub.

"The claim of “ethnic cleansing” is even more morally and intellectually bankrupt.

"The proposal to displace the people of Gaza has absolutely nothing to do with their ethnic composition. It is because they are an enemy population that not only tried but still intends to destroy another country and murder its citizens.

"As the historian Andrew Roberts has written, if people launch aggressive wars and lose them they forfeit by their behaviour all rights to remain in the territory that they have turned into an engine of war.

"Post-war population displacements have happened over and over again. After the Second World War, Europe accepted the deportation of some three million Germans from the Sudetenland because of their leader’s complicity with Hitler, and the area was re-populated with ethnic Czechs.

"Gaza is not, as the progressive classes claim, “sovereign” territory; it has never been the sovereign territory of anybody. Nor is it the Gazans’ “home”; as Hillel Neuer of UN Watch has so aptly observed, if the Arabs of Gaza are “refugees” — as we have been told ad infinitum — Gaza cannot be their home. QED.

"In fact, many if not most Gazans have long been desperate to live elsewhere but have been effectively imprisoned by an Arab world determined to keep them as far away as possible — both to enrage world opinion against the Jews, and because they are known to be trouble personified.

"Ethnic cleansing is what actually happened after 1948 to the Jews of the Middle East, 800,000 of whom were driven out of Arab lands in which Jews had lived for centuries — driven out purely because they were Jews. And ethnic cleansing is what the very same people who are levelling this claim at Trump are themselves demanding when they insist that Jewish residents of the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria should be removed from their homes there in accordance with the Palestinian demand that there should be no Jews in “Palestine”.

"For it’s not just Hamas that is the menace to civilisation. It’s the whole Palestinian cause. The Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank mount a never-ending attempt to murder Jews in the disputed territories and in Israel. The depravity of the October 7 pogrom was nothing new: in 2011, Ruth and Udi Fogel and their three children were slaughtered in their beds in their house in Samaria, and their baby was virtually decapitated, by an Arab from the territories of the “West Bank”.

"Fatah, the biggest faction in the supposedly ”moderate” Palestinian Authority, has repeatedly extolled the October 7 massacre. PA police officers have been involved in terrorist plots against Israeli Jews. The PA, which pays “salaries” to the families of terrorists who murder Jews, pumps out Nazi-style demonisation of Jews with which it indoctrinates its children to murder Jews and steal their land.

"In short, Palestinian society is entirely constructed around a poisonous and murderous hatred of Jews and the desire to remove them from the face of the earth.

"The emaciated figures who staggered out of their Gaza hellhole have illuminated the obscenity of the way in which so much of the west has behaved — trying to minimise, sanitise or excuse what the Palestinian Arabs have done to the Israelis; representing them as victims of the Israelis they have so viciously attacked; and demonising the Israelis with murderous falsehoods for the apparent crime of defending themselves against this genocidal onslaught.

"Now we can see the monstrosity of the way the Biden administration bullied and blackmailed Israel into allowing Hamas to survive.

"Now we can see the moral depravity of all those in the west — including Biden, Sir Keir Starmer and other western politicians, NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, and the wretched prelates of the Church of England — who have accused Israel of causing starvation in Gaza. The Gazan mobs who menaced the terrified Israeli hostages as they were released were well fed, plump, even obese; it’s the Israeli hostages who have been deliberately and murderously starved — by the people who have been promoted as victims by the west’s Israel-bashers.

"This moral bankruptcy towards Israel is nothing new. It has characterised the so-called civilised world for almost a century. The Arabs of pre-Israel Palestine should have been dispersed after 1948 when their side lost the war of extermination that was mounted to destroy at its rebirth the fledgling State of Israel.

"Instead, those Arabs were fashioned into a weapon against Israel’s existence by being turned preposterously into permanent refugees. The entirely spurious claim of a Palestinian national identity was cooked up in the 1960s between the terrorist leader Yassir Arafat and the Soviet Union as a strategy to destroy the Jews’ homeland, steal from them their own history in the land and re-label it “Palestinian” history, and fry the brains of the west in order to undermine it and soften it up for its destruction. That strategy has been carried out to the letter.

"And the west, led by Britain from the 1930s onwards, has consistently rewarded and incentivised mass murder against the Jews while upending international law by promising those waging this genocidal war a part of the Jews’ own historic and legally pledged homeland as the route to “peace” in the Middle East.

"The only moral course of action, the only way this century-old war to exterminate the Jewish homeland will be brought to an end in a just way, is to say to the Palestinian Arabs that it’s all over. They will never get a state; they don’t deserve a state; they never wanted a state, other than as a springboard to destroy Israel; and if they persist in their aim to destroy Israel and kill Jews, they will be treated henceforth as pariahs.

"And so should all who support them be treated. The obscene Palestinian cause is worn as the badge of conscience by the west’s progressive classes. That illustrates instead their repudiation of conscience. The Palestinian cause has destroyed the moral compass of the west.

"If Trump’s musings about a “Gaza Riviera” signal an equivalent strategy towards the Palestinian cause as a whole, he won’t just reshape the Middle East in a way that will bring it peace and justice. He will start to haul the west out of the moral abyss into which it has fallen."

*** My new book The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West – and Why Only They Can Save It, can be bought on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk .

Caitlin Rivers' Outbreak Outlook for 2/10/25

Outbreak Outlook - National - Feb 10

Tracking a record flu season

Feb 10, 2025

Influenza-like illness

This is a record flu season, one of the worst we have seen in more than a decade.

After an initial peak around the turn of the new year, outpatient influenza-like illness (ILI) activity dropped for a couple weeks—before making an unexpected rebound, rising to 7.8%. This means that around 1 in every 13 visits to the doctor is for fever and either cough or sore throat. This is the highest level since 2002, though the 2009-2010 and 2003-2004 seasons come close.

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Where is activity highest?

Most of the Southern region and parts of the Northeast are experiencing very high levels of activity. Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Ohio all have outpatient ILI above 10%. New York City (not shown) is the highest of all at 12.8%. The Midwest and West are in somewhat better shape.

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Who is most affected?

As usual, children under 4 years old are seeing the highest rates of illness at 16.9% ILI, an increase from 16.2% the previous week. School-age children and young adults (5-24 years) also show high activity at 11.9%, up from almost a whole point from the week prior.

Working-age adults (25-49 years) are seeing more moderate activity at 6.5% (this is still high!), while older adults show progressively lower rates, with those 50-64 years at 4.9% and those 65 and older at 3.2%. All age groups are seeing increases.

Note, however, it’s older adults who are at greatest risk of severe illness. Hospitalization rates are highest in people ages 75+, followed by the 65-74 age group.

Are we sure this is seasonal flu and not H5N1 or Covid-19?

Yes, this is seasonal influenza. Here’s why:

• We know it is not H5N1 because public health laboratories took a close look at 3,458 samples this week and none were H5. About half were H1N1 and the other half were H3N2. There is very little flu B circulating right now.

• Some readers have noted that outpatient ILI is syndromic (that is, based on symptoms rather than diagnostic tests) and have wondered whether thee heightened activity could actually be Covid-19. While it’s true that syndromic surveillance is nonspecific, multiple lines of evidence support that this is indeed influenza. Wastewater concentration is high, as are emergency department visits (shown below) and hospitalizations for influenza.

How can I prevent influenza?

To prevent influenza transmission, there are several options. Wear a well-fitting mask (like an N95 or KN95) in crowded indoor spaces during flu season. Ventilate indoor spaces by opening windows and using HEPA air filters. When indoors with others, choose larger spaces with good airflow and limit time in crowded settings like packed restaurants or public transit during peak flu activity. These ventilation and crowding measures work alongside basic precautions like getting vaccinated, washing hands frequently, and staying home when sick.

If you do get infected, antiviral medications like oseltamivir (Tamiflu), zanamivir (Relenza), or baloxavir (Xofluza) can help reduce symptom severity and duration if started within 48 hours of symptom onset. These medications work by preventing the virus from replicating, though they don't cure the infection.

In addition to antivirals, treatment involves managing symptoms through rest, staying hydrated, and using over-the-counter medications for fever and pain. Most healthy people recover within 1-2 weeks with supportive care.

And if you are wondering, it is not too late to get a flu shot. We still have at half the season to go, so might as well get protection now if you haven’t already. Coverage is about average this year, with states ranging from around 30-56% of adults. The Southern region tends to have lowest uptake.

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COVID-19

Covid-19 activity is moderate for most of the country.

Wastewater activity is high and increased again this past week. The Northeast and the Midwest are tied for regions with the highest activity. However, we aren’t yet seeing wastewater activity translate into severe illness.

Emergency department visits for Covid-19 fell slightly, but remain mostly stable overall. Around 1% of all trips to the ED are for Covid-19, down from a high of 3.4% around the new year. Hospitalizations also held steady at 3.7 hospitalization per 100,000 people.

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RSV & Other Bugs

RSV activity is low to moderate and falling in most regions of the country, as measured by ER visits. One exception is the Western region, where activity remains stable. Hospitalizations, too, are falling. Young children ages 0-4 are most likely to be hospitalized for RSV, followed by older adults. Hospitalizations for both age groups are steadily declining.

Human coronaviruses - a common cause of colds - are peaking for a second time this winter. They had peaked at the beginning of January, and now are back up again to the same level. Human metapneumovirus is low, but seems to be ticking up. Other causes of cold- and flu-like symptoms - like adenovirus and rhinovirus/enterovirus are fairy low right now.

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Norovirus

Rates remain unusually high, but it does appear that we have passed the peak. Test positivity decreased this week to 19.4%. This is a a marked improvement from the 26% it hit back in December, though it is still higher than peaks of the past several years. Rates are highest in the Midwest and ‘lowest’ (still high) in the South.

Source: CDC

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Food recalls

The following foods are being recalled because they are contaminated. Please check your cupboards and throw out any of these items:

New:

• Alfalfa sprouts sold under the Jack and the Green Sprouts brand name (more info)

• Aleppo Tahini Sesame Paste (more info)

• DJ's Boudain sausage links (more info)

Previously reported:

• Blue Ridge Beef Natural Mix [for dogs] (more info). While not for human consumption, humans may be infected with Salmonella if they do not adequately wash their hands or contaminated surfaces after handling the product.

• Wegman’s fully cooked breaded chicken nuggets (more info)

• Casa Mamita frozen chicken and cheese taquitos (more info)

• If you have food allergies, you may wish to review these FDA safety alerts and USDA alerts for foods with undeclared allergens.

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In other news

• Good news: After a couple weeks of disruption, the CDC data streams I use to produce this report have all been restored and updated.

• The World Health Organization reports that the Ebola Sudan outbreak in Uganda, has grown to 7 confirmed cases, up from 2 at last report. The index case, a 32-year-old male healthcare worker, developed symptoms on January 19 and died 10 days later. His wife is among the confirmed cases. Health officials have identified 298 contacts linked to two main clusters: a family cluster and a healthcare facility cluster. The U.S. CDC issued a Health Alert, though no suspected or confirmed cases have been reported outside Uganda. The CDC also raised its Travel Health Notice to Level 2, advising travelers to take enhanced precautions.

• An outbreak of Marburg virus disease has been declared in Tanzania. The first confirmed case died on January 19, but an epidemiological investigation found that the outbreak likely began in December or early January. As of January 31, ten cases have been reported. All ten have died. According to WHO, 241 of 281 contacts completed their follow up, with no new cases identified.

• At least four cattle herds in Nevada have tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu strain D1.1, a variant previously unseen in cows but linked to a fatal human case in Louisiana. Infected Nevada herds, located in Churchill County, were detected through state investigations and milk testing.

  • The discovery challenges earlier assumptions that bird flu spillovers into cattle are rare, as all previous cattle cases had been attributed to the B3.13 strain.

  • Unlike B3.13, which so far has caused only mild symptoms in humans, D1.1 has been associated with more severe illness.

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What Kind of Sick PC Schools Are These?

They are more obsessed with identity politics than they are concerned about protecting their daughters! It's obvious that criminals and sex offenders deliberately use the "identify as transgender" excuse precisely to be allowed into the presence of vulnerable girls and women.

Would the teachers and parents even care if their children were raped? At this point, they'd  probably even excuse that -- as they did in 2021.

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From National Review, 2/7/25: Virginia School District Stands by ‘Inclusive’ Policies After Allowing Male Sex Offender in Girls’ Locker Room

When Jen McDougal escorted her nine-year-old daughter to the locker room after swim practice in the early evening on September 9, 2024, she expected to see the usual changing-room scene: moms drying their giggling, teeth-chattering daughters. Instead, the room, full of about a dozen girls, was silent. Everyone was focused on the naked man who stood in the middle of their space.

McDougal’s daughter took lessons at the Washington-Liberty Aquatics Center, which is located inside Washington-Liberty High School, and is one of the three aquatics centers operated by Arlington Public Schools. Although the center’s locker rooms are restricted to student use during the school day, APS opens the locker rooms to the public outside of class hours, for recreational use and swim lessons for children as young as six months old.

At first, McDougal told National Review, she thought that the man was in the wrong place. His face and shoulders were covered with a towel, although his exposed penis was not, and he stood with his hands at his sides. Maybe he was older, she thought, and entered the room by mistake. But all of the other mothers seemed to flag him as a potential threat as well — they talked to their daughters in hushed voices and seemed as though they wanted to exit the room as quickly as possible.

‘I Can’t Stop Seeing It’

When they got to their car, McDougal’s daughter kept saying, “I can’t stop seeing it.”

McDougal told her was that if she was ever uncomfortable, or walked into a situation like that again, she should leave immediately. “You never have to feel stuck in a room like that,” she told her daughter.

Sitting in the parking lot, McDougal stuck around for a few minutes to see who would exit the facility. She saw a man come out eventually and “just knew it was him,” she said. “He had the smirk on his face that was just uncomfortable.”

That man, Richard Kenneth Cox, is a tier-three registered sex offender who was allowed in the locker room under Arlington Public Schools policy because he identifies as a woman.

Cox has a long rap sheet: in 1992, he exposed his genitals and masturbated in front of a child at a gymnasium; in 1992, he was convicted of burglary; in 2007, he was convicted of possessing obscene materials with a minor; in 2021, he was convicted for failing to register as a sex offender; in 2024, he was charged with indecent exposure for exposing himself in a women’s locker room at Planet Fitness. Cox has been a registered sex offender since 1998, and identifies as a woman, according to court documents. He was also on Virginia Department of Corrections’ most-wanted list in 2020.

In September 2024, people noticed Cox hanging out in the girls’ locker room at Washington-Liberty Aquatics Center. His “penis, testicles and legs were fully exposed to anyone walking through the entrance,” according to a civil rights complaint filed against Arlington Public Schools on Wednesday by the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI). Members of the community told aquatics center staff that “the Suspect had been exposing himself to young children throughout the girls’ locker room for over an hour in a time frame when ‘the locker rooms were packed with kids.'” Pool staff told McDougal that they had been getting complaints about Cox since at least summertime but couldn’t do anything about his presence because he identifies as transgender.

In October 2024, Cox was arrested after a parent reported to the police that he exposed his genitals to yet another female in the Washington-Liberty girls’ locker room. He was released from custody soon after when the victims declined to press charges.

In November, after Cox was reported for entering a women’s locker room at a local rec center, where he was identified as a sex offender, police investigated several other incidents that had occurred weeks earlier at Washington-Liberty, and charged him with indecent exposure. He will face those charges at a preliminary hearing in March.

As part of their ongoing investigation into Cox, Arlington police discovered multiple instances in which Cox allegedly exposed himself to women and children, including in the locker rooms of Wakefield High School in October and November and in the women’s locker room at Barcroft Sports & Fitness Center. He is scheduled to attend a preliminary hearing on those charges in March as well.

In total, Cox is facing charges of: indecent exposure, loitering at school after a sex conviction, indecent liberties with a child, entering a school after a sex conviction, and being near a playground.

After Cox was reported, then finally caught, APS did not revise its bathroom policy, which allows men to enter female spaces. It has, however, added “additional signage” to aquatic centers “that reminds all pool patrons to be considerate of others, privacy, cover intimate body areas when using shared spaces,” and has reviewed and adjusted “security protocols for signing in,” Superintendent Francisco Durán said in an email to families. Durán concluded his email with a note about inclusivity: “Arlington Public Schools will continue to foster an inclusive community for all, including members who identify as members of LGBTQ+ community.” At a recent school board meeting, Durán insisted that “we did not knowingly admit a sex offender into any of our aquatic facilities.”

When McDougal met with Arlington School Board Chair Mary Kadera at open office hours, Kadera took “prompt action” to implement the additional signage telling community members to cover up their body in locker rooms.

Other than that, district staff ignored McDougal’s emails. Pool staff didn’t take down her contact information or statement. McDougal — who wanted her daughter to complete swim lessons — found herself looking around the pool constantly, monitoring the locker room, and taking her daughter into private changing rooms when necessary, all to evade the intruder.

Cox wrote in a motion to dismiss the charge related to his Planet Fitness escapade that “nudity alone is not indecent, or we could not have public locker rooms at all. And the question of whether it is indecent for a transgender person to be nude in the locker room that they identify with has also been answered by our courts, our legislatures, and public opinion, and the answer is, No. So whatever it is that my accuser calls ‘indecent,’ other than the anti-trans discrimination that she harbors in her own mind, it has not been and cannot be proven to the court,” according to local news. However, Cox said in a 1995 letter to a judge that he was “aware that I suffer compulsions to expose myself in public places,” according to documents reviewed by 7News Reporter Nick Minock.

The superintendent, school board officials, and district staff who trained pool employees to disregard complaints of men in women’s spaces should all be held accountable for their actions, said Virginia Gentles, an Arlington mother and the director of Education Freedom and the Parental Rights Initiative at DFI, whose children used to take swim lessons at the Washington-Liberty Aquatics Center. According to APS district guidance, “All Arlington Public Schools staff shall be periodically trained on topics relating to transgender students. School staff members are responsible for taking prompt and effective steps to prevent and respond to harassment of any kind, including that which is based on gender identity.”

“Arlington Public Schools must follow Title IX requirements to keep spaces segregated by sex,” Gentles said. “I want to know that little girls in Arlington will no longer have to be subjected to naked men in the community locker rooms. That’s what I want as a parent, as an aunt, as a community member. From a DFI perspective, I want the U.S. Department of Education to make it clear that the Office of Civil Rights is going to enforce Title IX and the requirements that women and girls’ sports and spaces will be protected.”

Northern Virginia Fights to Preserve DEI

Such policies aren’t unique to Arlington. Elsewhere in northern Virginia, school districts have prioritized so-called “inclusive” policies at the expense of girls.

When in 2021, a “skirt-wearing” male student sexually assaulted a girl in a Loudoun County Public Schools high school bathroom, school officials covered up the event by transferring the boy to a different school — where he assaulted another girl.

Although courts blamed the incident on institutional failures that ignored and covered up the boy’s transgressions, parents, lawyers, and advocates blamed the school’s “inclusive” bathroom policy, which allows students to “use [restrooms and locker rooms] that correspond to their consistently asserted gender identity.”

Outrage over the event helped Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin win his race in November 2021. But years later, at least five northern Virginia public school systems — Alexandria City, Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County — still have in place policies that allow male students who “identify” as female to participate in girls’ sports, and gain access to girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms, according to an America First Legal complaint filed this week.

Under an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on Wednesday, school districts that allow gender-confused athletes to compete on a sports team or enter intimate spaces reserved for members of the opposite sex will be in violation of Title IX, and risk losing federal funding.

Virginia school districts may try to thwart his guidance. At a board meeting the week, the Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence claimed that the president would need Congress to take away funding for public schools that don’t comply with his EO. Spence said that “despite what some have come to believe, our DEI efforts are not about divisiveness, our DEIA efforts are instead about opportunity and about inclusion.”

McDougal, who fears that the locker-room intruder may get off easy due to Virginia’s liberal sentencing rules, disagrees.

“It’s an abuse of women’s right to feel safe in public spaces,” she said. “I understand there are a lot of people who say you can’t take away a person’s right to use a bathroom that they feel is appropriate for them. But this loophole is what created this situation for us. And he was allowed to enter that restroom, that facility, because he identified as transgender.”

Hamas Parade of Hostages: Evil on Display

This release was the worst so far.  In their weak and emaciated condition, all they needed were striped pajamas to look like Holocaust survivors. Those evil savages forced Eli Sharabi, Or Levy & Ohad Ben Ami to read those sickening prepared statements thanking Hamas for its nice treatment! And all along, Hamas knowing that Sharabi's wife and daughters had already been massacred by them on October 7 -- while he himself did not know! 

This unimaginable cruelty has to be punished and Hamas be held accountable. The best option is for Israel to kill each and every one. The second option is for a Islamic terrorist version of the Nuremberg trials, with these animals being exposed for what they really are, the way the Nazis were.  Like the Nazis, Hamas is guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, and if their hateful collaborators in America still won't believe that, then they themselves should be designated as "Hamas supporters" so that every college and every potential employer will be aware of it.

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From The Times of Israel 2/8/25:

"Three hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack were released by Hamas on Saturday, with the men looking gaunt and unsteady on their feet as they were released by the terror group, 16 months after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and the Nova music festival.

"Eli Sharabi, 52, Or Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56, all appeared extremely thin and frail, and while they were able to walk, seemed to be unsteady on their feet.

"Sharabi and Levy were coming home to a tragic new reality — Sharabi’s wife and two teenage daughters were murdered on October 7, and Levy’s wife was also killed that day.

"According to reports, Sharabi did not know that his wife and daughters had been killed. His mother and sister, who reunited with him on his arrival back in Israel, told him the terrible news, having prepared ahead of time for how to break it to him, the report says.

"It was unclear if Levy had known about his wife.

"Their relatives have received guidance from professionals on how to deal with the situation.

Left to right: Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami seen on a stage set up by Hamas in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, before the terror group handed them over to the Red Cross, February 8, 2025 (Eyad BABA / AFP)

"Michal Cohen, the mother of Ben Ami, said she was devastated to see her son look so thin and unwell.

“He looks terrible. He is 57, but he looks ten years older. It is so sad for me to see him like this,” she said. “He looked like a skeleton.”

"Tal Levy, brother of Or Levy, told Channel 12 that his brother “looks very, very thin, and it’s indeed very difficult to see him,” but “he’s coming back and he’ll recover.”

"He stressed that “today more than ever: all the hostages need to come back…we must see this deal through.”

"Sharabi and Ben Ami wore brown outfits declaring them to be “prisoners” while Levy was dressed in an approximation of an Israel Defense Forces uniform — even though he is a civilian. Hamas considers all Israeli men under the age of 50 to be soldiers.

"Hamas set up a stage for the handover to the Red Cross in Deir al-Balah, decorated with a sign declaring “total victory,” the catchphrase used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throughout the war.

"Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza, is one of the few areas in the Strip where the IDF had not intensively operated with ground forces. Unlike other areas of Gaza, most of the buildings in Deir al-Balah are standing. Deir al-Balah was also part of the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone,” where most aid was directed.

Palestinian Hamas gunmen parade Israeli hostages (L-R) Ohad Ben Ami, Or Levy and Eli Sharabi on a stage before handing them over to a Red Cross team in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on February 8, 2025 (Bashar TALEB / AFP)

"As has now become a regular part of the proceedings, representatives of the International Red Cross sat at desks on the stages to sign the so-called handover documents produced by the terror group.

"The three men were made to speak while on stage, carrying the now ubiquitous certificates of their release before they were handed over to the Red Cross. None of the hostages has been visited by the humanitarian organization while held captive.

"Considered to be propaganda by the Hamas terror group, Israeli outlets have not reported what the men were made to say.

"The Red Cross transported the freed hostages to IDF and Shin Bet forces inside Gaza, after which they were escorted out of the Strip to a military facility near the border to reunite with family members and undergo initial assessments by doctors and mental health officers.

Hamas gunmen stand in formation ahead of a hostage release in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday Feb. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

"Supporters of the three men lined the route near the base close to Re’im, waving flags and holding placards welcoming their return.

"Crowds also gathered in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square to watch the release of the hostages on a big screen set up at the location that has become a focus point for the fight to secure the release of the captives.

"Sharabi was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas terrorists rampaged through southern Is"rael on October 7, 2023. His wife Lianne and their daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, all dual British-Israeli citizens, were murdered in their home’s safe room, and he and his brother Yossi were taken captive.

Eli Sharabi was taken captive on October 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists while his wife Lianne and their two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were killed. (Courtesy)

"Yossi Sharabi has since been confirmed dead and Hamas is holding his body. The IDF has said he was likely killed as a result of an Israeli military strike.

"Levy, 34, was kidnapped from the Supernova rave near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7.

"He and his wife Eynav arrived at the festival just before the deadly Hamas onslaught began. They headed for their car when the rockets started, then sought refuge in a roadside bomb shelter.

"Several days later, the IDF informed the family that Eynav had been killed and her body had been found in the shelter and that Or had been taken captive.

Or Levy (left) and Eynav Levy, who went to the Supernova desert rave on October 7, 2023. (Michael Levy via AP)

"Since then, the couple’s now three-year-old son Almog has been raised by his grandparents.

"He had been told for the past 16 months that his father was missing and being searched for — Levy’s brother Michael wrote on Facebook on Friday: “Mogi, we found your dad.”

"Levy’s mother Geula, who met him at Re’im, said ahead of the release that it was not clear if he knew that his wife Eynav was killed on October 7, 2023.

“We don’t know if Or knows that his wife was murdered, but from what we have heard the terrorists very much enjoyed telling the hostages that their loved ones had been killed and causing them pain and suffering,” she told Army Radio.

Women hold posters bearing photos of Ohad Ben Ami (L) and Or Levy, two of three Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas on February 8, 2025, as friends and supporters of hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, gather at hostage square in Tel Aviv. (Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)

"Dual Israeli-German national Ben Ami was kidnapped from Be’eri. His wife Raz Ben Ami was also abducted, and released as part of a week-long ceasefire in November 2023. Their daughters campaigned hard for their freedom.

"On October 7, 2023, one of the first images to emerge from Gaza of a hostage taken there was of Ohad Ben Ami being dragged through a street.

"The Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the immediate release of the remainder of Israeli hostages after images emerged of the three men looking severely malnourished and frail.

“The horrifying images of Ohad, Eli, and Or reveal the devastating toll of 491 days in Hamas captivity,” the forum said. “These are men who have endured hell itself. This is a crime against humanity.

Friends and relatives of Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi watch the live broadcast of their release from Hamas captivity in Gaza, at Kibbutz Be’eri on Feb. 8, 2025 (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

“These disturbing images show the entire world the desperate reality facing every hostage still held in Gaza. These images evoke the horrifying pictures from the liberation of the camps in 1945, the darkest chapter of our history. We have to get ALL OF THE HOSTAGES out of hell,” the forum statement said. “There can be no more delays – a second stage of the hostage deal must be implemented immediately.”

"The Hamas prisoners’ media office said Israel was expected to free 183 Palestinians in exchange for the release of three hostages, including 18 who have been serving life sentences, 54 serving long sentences and 111 who were detained in the Gaza Strip during the war.

"Uncertainty around the ceasefire has mounted following US President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement this week that he wants Gaza to be taken over by the United States.

"Trump said on Tuesday he wanted to move the population of Gaza to a third country like Egypt or Jordan and place the small coastal enclave under US control to be developed into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” On Friday he said there was “no rush” to implement the plan.

"Netanyahu endorsed Trump’s vision for Gaza as a “remarkable” plan, but it was immediately rejected by Arab countries, Palestinian groups including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and many Gazans, who said they would rebuild their homes themselves.

US President Donald Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC, on February 6, 2025. (Ting Shen/AFP)

"So far, 16 Israeli hostages of the 33 children, women and older men set to be released in the first, 42-day phase of the agreement have come home, along with five Thai hostages. Hundreds of Palestinian terror convicts have been released under the deal.

"Work on the potential second stage of the multi-phase agreement, aimed at securing the release of around 60 male hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, has begun and an Israeli negotiating team was expected to fly on Saturday to Doha, Hebrew media reported on Friday.

"In total, Israel has said it would release up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners — including 737 serving life terms for dozens of murders — in return for 33 Israeli hostages during the deal’s first phase.

"Though talks for the second phase were supposed to commence Monday, Netanyahu has pushed off sending a negotiating team, reportedly until he returns from Washington next week, in what would apparently be a violation of the deal’s terms.

"A working-level negotiating team, led by the outgoing Shin Bet deputy director — known by his Hebrew initial “Mem” — is expected in Doha over the weekend, but is empowered to discuss only the first phase, not the second, according to Channel 12.

"The delay in talks on the second phase has deeply worried the families of male hostages and those who have been killed, and are not set to be released until phases two and three.

"Seventy-three of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014."

About The H5N9 Bird Flu

Trump just named Gerald Parker to lead the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, and I think everyone will feel good about his qualifications. It's just in time, too.

From Alice Park at TIME Magazine 2/4/25:  

What to Know About the H5N9 Bird Flu 

"In late January, scientists at the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) reported the first cases of H5N9 avian influenza in the U.S., on a duck farm in California.

"The latest strain isn’t a surprise, say public-health experts, since influenza takes different forms in different species and is constantly mutating. But the appearance of H5N9 is still concerning, especially in light of the ongoing outbreaks in chickens and cows of H5N1.

"Here's what to know.

Why bird flu is so rampant right now

“We’ve never seen a global spread of avian influenza virus like this,” says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “We’ve seen an explosion in the number of outbreaks in poultry and duck operations over the course of recent weeks. This reflects the fact that there is so much H5N1 in migrating waterfowl."

"There are about 40 million migratory aquatic waterfowl in North America, Osterholm says—which means there are plenty of potential bird-flu hosts, whose poop spreads disease.

"What we are seeing more and more are outbreaks in poultry operations because this virus is common in the environment and it’s blowing around," he says. "That’s different from anything we’ve seen before.”

How H5N9 is different from H5N1

"H5N9 is “not commonly seen in poultry in general,” says Eman Anis, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. (Anis is part of a lab that conducts national testing of poultry samples for avian influenza.)

"The virus is the result of a combination of H5N1, H7N9, and H9N2, according to researchers in China who studied samples isolated from bird markets in 2015. At the time, the scientists said it wasn't clear how adept the virus was at infecting people—which remains the case today—but warned it was "imperative to assess the risk of emergence of this novel reassortant virus with potential transmissibility to public health."

Why scientists are worried about H5N9

"When H5N9 was recently detected in ducks, H5N1 was detected along with it.

"That's concerning, since viruses are able to combine and reassemble their genetic material. With so much H5N1 circulating, the danger of that strain coming into contact with other avian viruses—like H5N9—increases the chances that new, mutant strains can emerge. The fear is that one of those reassortments could result in a strain that easily infects and spreads among people.

"By allowing bird flu to spread among animals mostly unchecked, “We are increasing the risk of something really terrible happening,” says Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “When you take risks, sometimes you get lucky. I always say you can close your eyes and cross a busy street, and you might not get hit by a car. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea."

Concern for the future

"What absolutely needs to be happening right now is we need a global coordinated strategy," Jha says. "Migratory waterfowl do not observe national boundaries, and any surveillance for [avian influenza] has to be done in a multi-national way.”

"President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO), and his instructions for federal employees not to work with anyone from the global health agency, will make such a coordinated effort nearly impossible, Jha says—and that it will heighten the chances that viruses, including bird flu, cause larger outbreaks."