The Chicken Little Problem: Are We About to Have a Bird Flu Pandemic, or Not?
The "when" doesn't matter.
Back in 2020, a colleague of mine at another university became one of the first Americans hospitalized with SARS-2. It happened in March, just before the official pandemic declaration. The doctors had no idea what she had and why she wasn’t getting better. It didn’t kill her, but it destroyed her health and derailed her career. Her university ousted her from her leadership role.
She still teaches, but she’ll never be the same.
My colleague joined the list of early casualties as the public discourse shifted from a minimizing tone to a catastrophizing one.
It was those severe illnesses and deaths that galvanized the public to stop downplaying the disease and start taking precautions.
Sometimes, you don’t get a warning.
You are the warning.
I’ve already written a number of pieces on bird flu. First, here’s everything you need to know about transmission and symptoms (or at least everything I’ve been able to find out). I’ve written about plant-based antivirals and the most reliable brands on the market. I’ve also written about our history, and the fact that our government agencies have ignored pandemics before. I’ve written about what the outgoing administration did to leave us all more vulnerable to a future pandemic, and how they dropped the ball on clean air in schools. In fact, it would be more accurate to say they threw the ball down on the ground and stomped it.
I’ve written a lot this last year, but as we wrap up 2024 and head into the next year, bird flu feels like the highlight reel.
Bird flu has been showing up in mainstream news coverage and discourse much more over the last two weeks, as the CDC confirms mutations in severe cases that point to enhanced human spread, something some of us have been warning about for almost two years now. California recently declared a state of emergency as H5N1 spreads to 60 percent of their dairy herds. Los Angeles also confirmed its first case of human H5N1 bird flu, apparently from working with infected livestock. The virus has also been found in growing numbers of cats.
H5N1 has been threatening a pandemic for nearly three years now, burning its way through the animal kingdom toward our doors. Over the last several weeks, I see one question over and over:
When?