A bird flu pandemic would be one of the most foreseeable catastrophes in history
It is spreading rapidly among cattle, but there has been no adequate response to tackle the threat with mandatory testing, isolating infected herds and speeding up vaccine development
ALMOST five years after Covid-19 blew into our lives, the main thing standing between us and the next global pandemic is luck. And with the advent of flu season, that luck may well be running out.
The H5N1 avian flu, having mutated its way across species, is raging out of control among the United States’ cattle, infecting roughly a third of the dairy herds in California alone. Farmworkers have so far avoided tragedy, as the virus has not yet acquired the genetic tools to spread among humans.
But seasonal flu will vastly increase the chances of that outcome. As the colder weather drives us all indoors to our poorly ventilated houses and workplaces, we will be undertaking an extraordinary gamble that the nation is in no way prepared for.
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