So a bunch of you are not Terminally Online which is fine. I'm kind of jealous if I'm honest. Lemme catch you up.
A lesbian hobby farmer in Florida owns an emu and went viral (hahaha) for him pecking the camera while she tried to record videos for TikTok. At which point people noticed she was the same white lesbian who had been racist in previous attempts to build a platform on TikTok. But this time she had her money maker in the form of the emu and portraying herself as wholesome and Christian and lesbian.
A few days ago she posts a thread about how she's had a problem with Egyptian Geese landing at her place and they had brought in Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). She had lost all of her poultry to it except, miraculously, the viral (hahaha) money making emu. He of course is battling for his life, will only eat if hand fed, and has nerve damage in one leg that means he cannot stand unassisted so they've rigged a sling for him.
She posts pictures of herself lying in his bedding with her face near his and with her face pressed against his. She tells people they're following "FDA" regulations and not to say anything negative. I am pretty sure by "FDA" she means FDACS, the Florida Dept of Ag. But she's not following their regs, because she won't wear a mask around the emu because she claims it stresses him out.
People have found her farm listed as having an HPAI outbreak on the FDACS website, so she definitely reported it. The thing is that when you report an outbreak, FDACS sends a team of trained personnel in hazmat suits to euthanize your birds. There is no fucking around. Although the CDC currently lists the strain of HPAI circulating in North America as low risk to humans, it is not NO risk and what we know is that it can and does jump to humans who have close contact with sick birds.
In other countries, HPAI has been shown to be transmissible between humans who have close contact. It's also transmissible to dogs, cats, martens, and pigs. That we know of.
HPAI also has a 50% death rate in humans so far. Nobody wants to find out what happens if it mutates and becomes easily transmissible between humans. There is no vaccine. Have you read THE STAND? Go read THE STAND.
Every human being who gets the virus is a risk for it to mutate and adapt better to being transmitted between humans. And so if you have HPAI, the govt sends people in hazmat suits to euthanize your birds. There is no "this one is a pet, not livestock" exemption. There is no "oh but this one is famous" exemption. There is no "oh but I have a weird parasocial relationship with this one" exemption.
She had to have lied to FDACS and/or concealed the emu from them. She certainly did not tell FDACS she had an emu with HPAI as she should have done, or he would have been euthanized, as he should have been. Instead she lied and/or concealed the emu and engaged in high risk behaviors like putting her face up against his and spending large amounts of time with him while not wearing appropriate PPE.
She's not just risking her life, she's risking becoming patient zero for an apocalyptic flu outbreak that makes COVID look tame. Like feel how you're gonna feel about your parasocial relationship with the emu but her behavior is wildly irresponsible and actively unethical.