RISK: "'This could be 100 times worse than Covid': Bird flu warning from scientists who say HALF of infections with H5N1 in people are fatal - as White House says it's 'monitoring' the situation"

Following up on April 1's "Hey, Remember Those Wacky Dutch Scientists Who Weaponized Bird Flu To Kill Half The World's Population?".

From the Daily Mail, April 3:

• Experts warn there is a higher risk of bird flu starting to spread between humans
• But some appeal for calm, saying there are still a lot of unknowns

A bird flu pandemic could be '100 times worse than Covid' and kill up to half of everyone it infects, experts have warned — as the White House says it is 'monitoring' the situation.

Speaking at a briefing, virus researchers said the H5N1 strain of bird flu may now be getting 'dangerously close' to triggering a pandemic.

Multiple cases of the infection in a variety of mammals, including cows, cats and, more recently, humans, are all raising the risk of the virus mutating to become more transmissible, they said.

But others attending the briefing said it was too early to panic because there were still too many unknowns about recent cases to warrant sounding the alarm.

A White House representative said today it was tracking bird flu in the US, adding: 'We take the health and safety of the American people seriously.'

The above shows how bird flu is edging closer to human spillover in the US

The panel was quickly convened off the heels of news that a dairy farm worker in Texas tested positive for the virus, alongside 12 herds of cows in six states and three cats also in Texas that subsequently died.

Testing done on the worker showed the patient's virus had already mutated to spread more easily — although the CDC said this mutation had been recorded before, that the risk was low and that there was no sign of human-to-human transmission.

The briefing was attended by bird flu researchers, doctors and officials from government agencies who were alarmed by the bird flu case in a human.

John Fulton, a pharmaceutical industry consultant for vaccines and founder of Canada-based pharmaceutical company BioNiagara, organized the meeting after receiving enquiries from the media.

Speaking at the briefing, Dr Suresh Kuchipudi, a bird flu researcher in Pittsburgh, warned: 'This virus [has been] on the top of the pandemic list for many, many years and probably decades.

'And now we are getting dangerously close to this virus potentially causing a pandemic.'

....MUCH MORE

Also at the Daily Mail, April 3:

Bird flu that infected Texas farm worker HAS mutated to spread more easily, CDC reveals - as three pet CATS die from virus and America's biggest egg producer is hit with outbreak

Hold my calls please, I'm going to lay down under my desk and think about stuff.