California on Wednesday declared a statewide emergency over bird flu, with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom warning that “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property” meant greater efforts were needed to defeat the spread.
“Local authority is inadequate to cope with the magnitude of the damage caused by Bird Flu,” Newsom said in his declaration.
The declaration comes after months of efforts by one of the nation’s largest milk-producing states to contain the spread largely on dairy farms to the general population, with 34 human cases reported in California since March. More than 600 dairies have detected cases across the state, mostly in the heavily agricultural Central California region.
But Newsom said the detection Dec. 12 of the flu to cows in Southern California necessitated “a shift from regional containment to statewide monitoring and response.”
