(VitalNews.org) – The United States is making some of the same mistakes with the H5N1 virus that they made with COVID. This has been raising concern across the country as the Bird Flu continues to spread through American farms.
Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said, “We’re closing our eyes to both the Covid pandemic and to a potential nascent bird flu pandemic on the horizon. Our ability to react swiftly and decisively is the big problem.”
He stated that the biggest concern is that we aren’t learning from past epidemics or outbreaks, especially when facing another health issue. “The social epidemic of forgetting is probably the more worrisome public health event of 2024,” he said
The lack of testing, mediocre data, poor healthcare access, and political divides are all playing a role in the concerns around the Bird Flu.
Gonsalves said, “We have not really done anything to address what’s happening in terms of the onward spread of bird flu across the US – we’re back to the same old mistakes.” He continued, “Right now, the imminent risk is low and we haven’t seen human-to-human transmission. But the point is, we don’t wait for that to happen. Right?”
Officials have worried about the Bird Flu virus since the very first case was detected in 1997. Highly pathogenic viruses are often studied heavily and watched closely because of their pandemic potential.
The United States was even named number one in pandemic preparedness in 2019, which made the concerns regarding what happened with COVID even more confusing for experts. This has pushed many to speak out about how the country needs to be more prepared and do more to ensure that a pandemic of that size doesn’t happen again.
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