The CDC has no legal authority to order those protective measures, and health officials in some of the nine states with reported outbreaks in cattle have had little luck getting farmers to take them up on offers of free personal protective equipment for their workers, even as the virus continues to spread. Six additional infected herds were reported yesterday — in Michigan, Idaho, and Colorado — bringing the total to 42.

Texas, the one state with a confirmed human case, in a worker exposed to infected cows, has sent protective gear to some farms — four, to be exact. The state’s health department began offering gloves, masks, goggles, and gowns to dairy farms at the beginning of April, shortly after the state’s first cases were identified. A handful of sites in the Texas panhandle — each with sick cows — accepted them. The state has reported 12 infected herds so far.

“We offered PPE to any interested dairy and only four took us up on the offer. The offer still stands,” Texas Department of State Health Services press officer Lara Anton told STAT in an email.

Similarly, in Idaho, the health department began offering protective gear to farms when federal officials confirmed the flu’s presence in one herd there early last month. They have had no takers. “We have not distributed any PPE thus far,” said AJ McWhorther, a spokesperson for the state health department.

In Michigan, which has now reported 10 herd infections, state officials have left PPE coordination to local governments, meaning there is no real picture of protective measures on the ground. “We are not tracking those PPE distributions from local health departments,” said a health department spokesperson.

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Via https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/10/bird-flu-virus-dairy-farmers-resist-ppe-recommendation/