A variant of the virus caused disease in people in 1997, when there was a small but deadly outbreak in Hong Kong. Eighteen people had confirmed diagnoses, and six of them died. Since then, there have been sporadic cases around the world—but no large outbreaks.

With reports of the first human death from bird flu in the US, some Americans are feeling an uncomfortable flashback to the early days of Covid-19, when infectious disease experts were talking about a new virus that was sending people to the hospital with respiratory infections.

The first known death from a bird flu virus in the US has sparked fears about another pandemic, yet the overall risk to the general public still remains low

Medical experts advise that people should get a vaccine for the bird flu when it becomes commercially available. One doctor said the most at-risk patients should be first.

The experiment of whether H5 can ever be successful in human populations is happening before our eyes,” Seema Lakdawala, a flu virologist at Emory University, told me. “And we are doing nothing to stop it.

The bird flu virus circulating among cows, poultry and wild birds isn't yet a threat to the general public, but experts say if and when that will change is impossible to predict — and that if things do get bad,

Read more Bird flu has been spreading into Texas, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Division (TPWD) said it recently found cases in Travis, Wharton, Galveston, El Paso, Potter and Harris counties.