Every week or so, scientists issue another warning that the H5N1 bird flu is inching closer to exploding into a pandemic.
Despite having contended with a pandemic that broke out less than five years ago, the U.S. has no solid plan to handle a new one — nor have our leaders done anything to incorporate the lessons learned from the government’s less-than-ideal handling of COVID-19.
Too many Americans died from COVID-19 because the public health community took too long to issue warnings, was slow to create tests to assess the situation and was sluggish in shifting its response to fit the data on airborne transmission. The much-criticized lockdowns could have been less disruptive and saved more lives had they been periodically adjusted as data changed on who was most at risk and which activities were riskiest.