Ambers Echo
Still wittering on
Many of the vaccinated horses who have tested positive have been symptom free. That is, to me, a great positive that is not worth minimising.
This exactly. Had an interesting chat with my vet yesterday when mine were having their boosters. He picked up one of the first cases at the beginning of the year in an unvaccinated horse and said the swab sent to the AHT was absolutely laden with flu virus and that the affected horse was a) very sick and b) spewing out shedloads of virus all over the place. That case went on his FB page which is why I have been more flu-aware for a while now. On the other hand he said that even though some infection can break through the vaccination those horses are only shedding a tiny fraction of virus in comparison with the unvaccinated horses. His overall take is that flu is on the up but remains rare and that vaccination is by far the best way to protect your own and other horses.
Food for thought: unvaccinated horses are - scientifically speaking - at far greater risk themselves and also present a far greater risk to others than vaccinated horses who are still out and about. That was true before this outbreak, remains true now and will still be true when the outbreak is over. So if people are going to worry about flu, they should logically focus their concern on the low vaccination rates and not on covered horses out and about. And it would make more sense for YO's to refuse to have unvaccinated liveries than to stop the vaccinated and non exposed horses from going out. I don't care what other people do - people can make up their own minds. But when anti or non vaxxers start criticising all movements on safety grounds then I want to bang my head against a wall.
Oh and just as a random aside - the only reason vets are able to cope with the current upsurge in demand is because they had been stockpiling vaccine for Brexit! Who said nothing good could come of Brexit.....
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