LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 State leaders gathered Tuesday at the Rapid Response Center in Lancaster County to address growing concerns over Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, also known as “bird flu.”<\/p>\n
The center sits in the heart of Pennsylvania\u2019s $7 billion poultry industry.<\/p>\n
Governor Josh Shapiro acknowledged the stress farmers are facing as cases continue to surge across the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna get through this. This is not good. This is obviously a scary time. I know this is a time of great worry and anxiety. I get it,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n
Since the start of the year, Pennsylvania has lost millions of birds to the virus.<\/p>\n
The Shapiro Administration says it is expanding testing capacity, deploying additional personnel and coordinating with federal partners to contain the spread.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said biosecurity measures are critical right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe level of biosecurity and who has it and then, not just the plan, but who’s using it every day,\u201d Redding said.<\/p>\n
While there are no recent cases reported in Berks County, neighboring Lancaster, Lehigh and Northampton counties have been impacted.<\/p>\n
Berks County lawmakers say the issue still matters locally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we’re talking about here matters for the county that I represent. It’s something that is of great concern to me,\u201d said Sen. Judy Schwank (D – 11th District.)<\/p>\n
Sen. Scott Martin (R -13th District) said bipartisan coordination will be key moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that bipartisan effort of working together can lead to not only have a better response, but how to prepare for the future and prepare better,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
State officials say poultry products remain safe to consume but are urging farmers to strengthen biosecurity measures as the surge continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 State leaders gathered Tuesday at the Rapid Response Center in Lancaster County to address…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[57693,13123,349,2002,57694,128,130,129,10674,8991],"class_list":{"0":"post-122692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-agricultural-health-and-safety","9":"tag-avian-influenza","10":"tag-berks-county","11":"tag-lancaster","12":"tag-poultry-products","13":"tag-reading-city","14":"tag-reading-city-headlines","15":"tag-reading-city-news","16":"tag-russell-redding","17":"tag-shapiro-administration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}