Experts say we should be watching the evolution of bird flu

In February of 2020, I was living in Missoula, Montana, when my roommate told me about a little thing called coronavirus. The word had been making headlines for a couple months at that point, but this was the first in-person conversation I had with someone who was ringing any alarm bells.

My roommate’s brother was a high-ranking officer in the military and part of the federal planning process for an impending COVID-19 pandemic. He’d warned my roommate that there would likely be supply shortages because of it, and just in case he was right, we preemptively stocked up on food and toilet paper for two weeks.

A few weeks after this conversation, the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic, and supply chain shortages soon followed.

My roommate worked in public health and, in my opinion, is a very smart and level-headed individual. She is also good at risk assessment, which is what made our conversation about COVID-19 so poignant. If she was concerned about this thing, I knew I should be too.

Roughly four years later, another pandemic could be looming: H5N1 bird flu.

Even though we’re just a handful of years out from the COVID-19 pandemic and the lessons learned (and issues it revealed), I’m worried the alarm bells won’t be sounded early enough if bird flu does become a risk to the general public.

In February 2022, the flu, which normally can be found in wild birds, began infecting chickens. As of this writing, almost 97 million chickens in 48 states have tested positive for bird flu.

In 2023, bird flu was found in marine mammals like elephant seals and sea lions. The flu has killed tens of thousands of marine mammals since then.

Then, in early 2024, bird flu hit another sector of livestock: cattle. Roughly 100 dairy herds in 12 states have been affected as of June 13, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Finally, in March 2024, the flu was detected in a dairy worker in Texas. Two more farmworkers have tested positive since then, both in Michigan.

The real number of humans who have contracted bird flu could be more than that.

Despite the number of outbreaks among livestock, most testing is still voluntary for farmworkers. This is because some dairy farmers are reluctant to have their workers tested. It’s also because, for many farmworkers, taking time away from work to get tested and stay at home if sick has little benefit, given that these jobs have been historically excluded from basic labor rights like paid sick leave and minimum wage.

Yet, surveilling farm workers who are at the frontlines of bird flu could be essential in preventing a widespread human outbreak. It could also help protect rural communities where many farm workers live, communities that would likely be the first places to suffer from such an outbreak.

If bird flu evolves to be more transmissible human-to-human, the threat of a pandemic could be high.

One of the biggest global issues during the COVID-19 response was the way different government agencies handled testing and information-sharing. Many countries didn’t have enough resources or information to act swiftly, and there was no effective international support to help.

The distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine is a good example of this: the United States and other rich countries bought up all the supply, leaving poorer countries to fend for themselves. The virus evolved into different variants – Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omicron – in countries that did not have widespread access to the vaccine, which ultimately worsened the pandemic.

Public health experts say we can’t do this again with bird flu, but it’s up to our governments to listen to them.

Some reporters and experts have been reluctant to ring the bird flu alarm bells because it’s not yet a threat to the general public — why worry unnecessarily and cause a panic?

Personally, I think this vastly underestimates the public’s ability to absorb and respond to a threat. It also leaves us less prepared, which can make a disaster much worse.

In Missoula, during the month prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I got a warning from someone I trusted and I was better prepared because of it.

This time around, the advantage we all have is that we’ve lived through a pandemic once before and have a better understanding of infectious disease. Certainly there’s pandemic fatigue – I gleefully got rid of all my cloth masks a few months ago and let my hand sanitizer supply diminish – but people are also generally more aware of the realities of sickness.

As controversial as some preventative measures might seem, doing things like wearing masks, washing your hands, staying home when sick (if you’re able), and keeping your distance from others are tactics that are more familiar now than they were prior to 2020. The general public has more literacy around sickness prevention, and we can use that to our benefit if bird flu does become a problem.

From the public health experts I’ve listened to and read from, right now seems to be a good time to be gently, lightly, ringing the alarm bells. Staying up-to-date on how the disease is evolving is the best way to remain tactfully informed – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a good dashboard with the information they know. There’s nothing to be worried about yet. And still, it never hurts to have an extra pack of toilet paper

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.