A new pandemic

For those of us who loiter in the echo chamber of emerging infectious diseases, emergency preparedness, or who work in certain farming sectors, HPAI H5Nx is a legitimate public health concern; and while not guaranteed to spark the next pandemic, it is plausible contender. 

But for the vast majority of people - even those who watch the news or scroll social media - it is just one of hundreds of annoying threats they are incessantly bombarded with each and every day. 

In a clickbait driven economy - where the `truth' often depends upon the teller's agenda, and headlines are usually either hyperbolic or deceptive - for many it has become preferable to be selective consumers of information, while tuning out everything else. 

If Timothy Leary's "Turn on, tune in, drop out" was the catch-phrase of my youth then `Turn off, tune out, and drop dead!' may well be the anthem for today. 

At least, that might help explain the results of two recent surveys that examine the public's perception of the risks of avian influenza in the United States, and seasonal flu vaccine uptake among poultry workers in the UK.

While surveillance and reporting is spotty at best, we are arguably witnessing the largest, most diverse, and widespread epizootic in human history.  

Even if it turns out that H5N1 doesn't have what it takes to spark a human pandemic, the damage it has done (and continues to do) to our shared ecosystem is incalculable, and the knock-on effects of these losses may not be fully appreciated for years. 

Events that were nearly unthinkable four years ago (e.g. Repeated trans-Atlantic introduction of avian flu from Europe, the spread of HPAI H5 across the length of South America, numerous spillovers of H5 into mammalian species, and  > 77 human cases in the U.S. ) have somehow become routine. 

While the future course and impact of HPAI H5 remains unknown, HPAI's recent trajectory represents an escalation of its threat level, and we'd do well to take that seriously.