'Trump fired a tariff torpedo at China — and hit Boeing right between the eyes'

Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times

The "latest skirmish between Trump and China has painted a target on this nation's most important manufacturing exporter: Boeing," says Michael Hiltzik. China "ordered the country's airlines not to place new orders for Boeing aircraft," and the "size of the blow China struck against Boeing is hard to measure." Boeing's "plight is just one aspect of a White House tariff policy that increasingly resembles, as Shakespeare might have put it, 'a tale told by an idiot.'"

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'How likely is it that bird flu will spread to humans on a mass scale?'

Robert A. Weinstein and Cory Franklin at the Chicago Tribune

Fears of a "bird flu pandemic have not materialized, and there is less cause for worry than there was in the winter," say Robert A. Weinstein and Cory Franklin. But the "most feared scenario is a major recombination genetic event — the flu virus drastically reshuffles its genes in its hosts." So "surveillance must occur where the virus might be present: in raw milk and food, wastewater, animal and bird die-offs, specimens from zoo animals with flu-like illnesses and veterinary settings."

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'The cultural heresy of "Sinners"'

Armond White at the National Review

The "Black blues/vampire hybrid 'Sinners' mimics a mixed-genre Tarantino bash," says Armond White. The film "exploits the blues without accounting for its compelling folkloric qualities that contributed to the exceptionalism of American popular culture." The "one-dimensional rehash of Black American history degrades the legacy of the Southern blues." The "juxtaposition of vampire/tribal debauches revives the irresolvable racism that lay at the heart of Americana." The film is "hip-hop juvenilia for the millennium, minimizing Black culture."

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'The most underrated culinary ingredient is nature's pairing to eggs. Too bad we're terrified of it.'

Christina Cauterucci at Slate

Eggs, the "biological opposite of sperm, are a staple of American cuisine," says Christina Cauterucci. We "depend on and delight in the consumption of one variety of animal gametes. Why don't we eat the other?" It "makes sense that mammal sperm is a no-go," but it is "eaten as a standard food item in a diverse array of cultures around the world." Once you "wipe the cobwebs of orgasmic association from your head, fish sperm tastes pretty darn good."

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"Easter isn't until April, but the hunt is on for eggs," said Caroline Petrow-Cohen in the Los Angeles Times. "The breakfast staple has become pricier and harder to find" as the bird flu outbreak has worsened; in December alone, some 13 million chickens died of the disease or were culled to contain it. The average price of a dozen eggs nearly doubled over the past year to a record $4.95, and some grocery stores are now limiting how many boxes customers can buy. But "there's a lot more at stake than the price of eggs," said F.D. Flam in Bloomberg. At least 69 people in the U.S. have contracted avian flu, and one person—a Louisiana resident with a backyard flock of chickens—has died of the H5N1 virus. So far, the spread has only been from animal to person, with most human cases occurring in farm workers who had close contact with infected birds or dairy cows. But each new infection increases the odds that the virus will mutate to allow human-to-human transmission and "spark the next pandemic."

Despite that threat, the White House is "hobbling public health officials' response" to the outbreak, said Shannon Pettypiece in NBC News. The Trump administration has fired about a quarter of the personnel at an Agriculture Department program that tracks the spread of bird flu, and has laid off some 1,200 employees at the National Institutes of Health—including many promising young disease detectives. President Trump even briefly froze almost all external communication from the Centers for Disease Control; the agency is still not issuing regular bird flu updates. "We just don't know what's happening," said Michael Kilkenny, head of the Huntington Health Department in West Virginia. "We don't know if [bird flu] is expanding into our area if we aren't getting that communication from the CDC."

Bird flu will be the "first real test" for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said Carolyn C. Cannuscio and Rachel Feuerstein-Simon in The Philadelphia Inquirer. If the outbreak becomes a pandemic, "our best defense would be a new vaccine"—and as the newly confirmed health and human services secretary, Kennedy will have to support its development, testing, and approval; oversee its distribution; and build public trust in the lifesaving shot. "This is a tall order for a person who has built a reputation, career, and wealth" on anti-vaccine activism, and who recently said he wanted to pause infectious disease research for eight years. But Kennedy "is the secretary of HHS we have," so "let's hope he meets the moment." His performance could be "a matter of life and death."

What happened

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday it was trying to reverse last weekend's mass firing of employees working on the H5N1 bird flu epidemic. The layoffs were part of the weekend purge led by Elon Musk's secretive Department of Government Efficiency team, focusing on "probationary" employees hired or promoted less than a year ago. The Energy Department earlier this week struggled to rescind the firing of hundreds of employees working on U.S. nuclear weapons programs.

Who said what

"Several positions" supporting America's bird flu response "were notified of their terminations over the weekend," but "we are working swiftly to rectify the situation and rescind those letters," a USDA spokesperson told NBC News. When the Energy Department tried to rescind layoffs for all but 28 of the roughly 350 employees it fired at the National Nuclear Security Administration, they "could not all be reached" because they had lost access to their government email accounts, The Associated Press said, "and some were reconsidering whether to return to work, given the uncertainty created by DOGE."

"The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for," said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association. The Trump administration was sticking with its mass firings at other agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Emergency Management System, despite "experts cautioning that DOGE's blind cost cutting will put communities at risk," AP said.

What next?

The FAA "purge" includes employees working on radar, landing and navigational systems and maintenance, and despite assurances from Musk and the White House, it "could certainly affect air safety going forward," Rolling Stone said, citing current and former officials. "Holy hell — that was my response," one FAA official said. "How do they think airports and airplanes work?"

What happened

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that a second type of H5N1 bird flu had infected U.S. dairy herds, suggesting that cattle are more susceptible to the avian virus than previously believed and putting dairy workers at greater risk.

Who said what

The new H5N1 version, known as D1.1, was found in dairy cattle in Nevada and is different than the B3.13 type that has spread to more than 950 herds in 16 states over the past year, starting in Texas. The D1.1 infection was discovered by testing raw milk under a USDA dairy surveillance project launched last year.

"I always thought one bird-to-cow transmission was a very rare event," said Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, said to The New York Times. That it happened twice is "a little bit of a 'wow' to me." Most of the 67 people diagnosed with bird flu in the U.S. had mild symptoms and had worked with dairy or cattle, but the one known death was an elderly man infected with D1.1 after contact with wild and backyard birds.

What next?

"There does not appear to be an immediate change to human risk," already considered low for the general public, The Washington Post said. But it's important for federal officials to be vigilant and transparent about a virus that could "make Covid seem like a walk in the park," said Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist.

What happened

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency Wednesday as a rash of H5N1 avian flu outbreaks at Central Valley dairies spread to Southern California. Hours earlier, federal health officials announced that a Louisiana resident was hospitalized with the nation's first severe bird flu infection.

Who said what

The emergency proclamation is a "targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak," Newsom said in a press release. California is home to 645 of America's 865 infected cattle herds, according to the USDA. The virus was also detected in raw milk in California stores, leading to a recall last month. Los Angeles County yesterday "confirmed the deaths of two cats from bird flu infections after drinking the recalled raw milk," The Associated Press said.

None of the 61 confirmed human H5N1 infections have been conclusively tied to raw milk consumption, but 37 were traced to interaction with infected cattle. The Louisiana patient was infected through a backyard bird flock, contracting a "version of the virus that has been found in birds, not the one that is spreading in cows," The New York Times said.

What next?

Newsom's declaration was a "stark acknowledgment of the increasing seriousness of bird flu's spread," the Times said, but H5N1 "cannot yet spread easily among people" and "still poses little danger to the average American."

What happened

A single genetic mutation could turn the H5N1 avian flu virus infecting U.S. dairy herds into a version transmissible between humans, researchers at Scripps Research Institute reported Thursday in the journal Science.

Who said what

The H5N1 strain that started sweeping through dairy farms in March has infected 58 people working with infected cattle and poultry, the CDC said, though only with mild symptoms and no known human-to-human transmission. "All that can change if the virus mutates in the wrong way," The Washington Post said. The Scripps team found that one genetic tweak could enable the hemagglutinin proteins, or spikes, on the virus to latch onto and penetrate human respiratory cells, allowing viral spread among people.

What next?

The study is "significant, but it shouldn't cause alarm," Emory University virologist Anice Lowen said to NPR. There are likely "other changes a virus would need to go through to efficiently transmit in humans and cause a pandemic," though the massive "potential human exposure out there" does pose a "great risk" of such mutation. "If there is a bird flu pandemic soon," columnist Zeynep Tufekci said last week in The New York Times, "it will be among the most foreseeable catastrophes in history."

'I ran Operation Warp Speed. I'm concerned about bird flu.'

David A. Kessler at The New York Times

The incoming administration "must be prepared to tackle one issue immediately: the possibility that the spreading avian flu might mutate to enable human-to-human transmission," says David A. Kessler. What is "worrisome is that our arsenal to fight back might not be up to the task," so "bulk milk testing should be mandatory in all states with dairy farms." If the "virus begins to transmit efficiently among humans, it will be very difficult to contain."

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'The UN has failed us on Gaza. We need to decolonize and radically reform it.'

Omar Barghouti at The Guardian

Of the "many things that need fixing in this world to stop the genocide in Gaza and prevent any power from ever again doing 'a Gaza' on any vulnerable community, decolonizing the U.N. may be of utmost priority," says Omar Barghouti. This is a "transformative process that integrates the perspectives of marginalized and most affected communities and nations." This "radical yet incremental process aims at reclaiming the U.N. as the heritage of humanity at large."

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'Resolving India's population woes requires political maturity'

Sitaraman Shankar at Al Jazeera

There is "already an obvious, short-term solution" to India's "diminishing demographic dividend problem: moving people from where they are in excess to where they are actually needed," says Sitaraman Shankar. This "would keep real wages down, and push locals of rich states into higher-paying jobs, while providing some relief to states that are struggling to provide a decent standard of living for their massive populations." But this "would require a lot of political maturity."

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'What the US can learn from "Wicked"'

Patti Waldmeir at the Financial Times

It is "hard not to see 'Wicked' as a parable for our fractured times," says Patti Waldmeir. People "have to find the humility to listen — no matter how convinced I am that extreme views like that helped defeat the Democrats." The film "can do its little bit to help America find its way: to the bursting of bubbles and the making of friends, even between America's new politically popular class, the Republicans, and its new outcasts, the Democrats."

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'This is the world we live in now. Get used to it.'

Nesrine Malik at The Guardian

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's standing ovation from U.S. Congress last week ushered in a "new phase of the war in Gaza — one in which it is not only tolerated as an unfortunate necessity, but is seen as something for which unquestionable support will continue," says Nesrine Malik. This "represents a dissolution not only of international law, but a fundamental human law." While the "sanctity of human life" is what "separates us from barbarism," Israel's war on Gaza has become the "status quo." 

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'The immigrant workforce of America's dairy farms must be protected'

Abdullah Shihipar at The Boston Globe

Americans have seen "headlines about the spread of avian flu for months," and "many wonder if the H5N1 bird flu will develop into a pandemic similar to COVID-19," says Abdullah Shihipar. There have been 14 reported human cases so far and "clearly, America's farmworkers are on the front line" of the risk. Many of them are "exploited immigrant laborers" who "need to be protected" to "prevent a broader pandemic."

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'Warmth helps her avoid the backlash that women … face for showing power'

Cydney Hurston Dupree at the Los Angeles Times

As Kamala Harris works to become the next U.S. president, the "strongest tool in her arsenal is her words," says Cydney Hurston Dupree. "Coverage of Harris throughout her vice presidency has repeatedly ridiculed her speech," with detractors calling her use of language "bizarre and mystifying." But while "some leaders choose to emphasize dominance," Harris chooses to "aim for warmth," which is a "brilliant strategy that can win her the presidency."

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'The outside world has heard little of the horrors'

The Times editorial board

The civil war in Sudan, which has been ongoing for more than a year, is "one of the most brutal, destructive and pointless conflicts in the world," says The Times editorial board. "An epidemic of violence has led to mass rapes and thousands of women being forced into child marriage or sexual slavery," but "no attempt to halt the war or start peace negotiations has yet shown any effect," as the world is "preoccupied with conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza."

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Will unrest in Turkey derail a deal with Syria? How prepared is the world for bird flu? And could AI exacerbate climate change? 

A podcast for curious, open-minded people, The Week Unwrapped delivers fresh perspectives on politics, culture, technology and business. 

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America is stumbling in its battle against the bird flu. A mishmash of federal agencies are "slowing the country's ability to track and control" the virus, said The Washington Post, a faltering response that "has echoes of the early days of 2020" and the beginning of the Covid pandemic. There are reasons to be concerned: A Texas dairy worker was sickened by bird flu, the second U.S. case of human transmission. 

"This may be our last chance to halt bird flu in humans, and we are blowing it," Zeynep Tufekci said in The New York Times. There might be only one detected human case, but that's a flashing red light. "By the time we've detected 10, it's probably too late" to stop the spread, one expert said. The problem? Authorities don't seem to know what's going on, and they're not quickly sharing what they do know. It's all too reminiscent of the last viral disaster, but with an edge. "Four years later we have an added layer of polarization and distrust to work around."

The biggest source of concern right now is an outbreak in dairy cows, which has spread to at least eight midwestern states. Farmers are "increasingly worried about the health of our animals, the safety of our farm workers, and the outlook for our markets," Ken Nobis said at Agri-Pulse. The onslaught was unexpected. This means that "farmers currently have few options for treating the virus or containing its spread."

'Tepid and opaque'

The virus has "ravaged the US poultry industry" since 2022, Kenny Torrella said at Vox. Despite that, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has offered a "tepid and opaque" response to the spread — slow to track the jump from birds to cows, and similarly unhurried to share information about the virus' genetic sequencing. The challenge: The agency is responsible for both regulating and promoting American agriculture. That's an "irresolvable conflict" which results in an approach that's "heavy on the promotion and light on the regulation."

It's time to "demonstrate that we've learned the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic," Jaime M. Yassif said at CNN. That means ramping up vaccine funding, increasing livestock surveillance and stepping up emergency response planning. There is no time for governments — in America and around the world — to see what happens next: "If they wait for a confirmed outbreak among people, it will be extremely difficult to prevent the uncontrolled spread of the virus." 

"We shouldn't panic if bird flu becomes the next pandemic," Leana S. Wen said at The Washington Post. The federal government has improved access to "personal protective equipment such as masks, gowns and goggles" and stockpiles of medications like Tamiflu. There are also structures in place to ramp up vaccine production quickly, if necessary. So be reassured: The U.S. is in a "better place to respond compared with the start of the Covid pandemic."

Safe, for now

There are signs that the federal government is picking up the pace. The Biden administration last week announced a new requirement that "all dairy cows receive negative flu tests before they can be transported over state lines," Axios said. (They're also encouraging Americans not to worry too much: "Based on information currently available, our commercial milk supply is safe," said Don Prater of the federal Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.) Officials also said this week they will test beef for the H5N1 bird flu virus.

Even if the virus is contained to animals, the bird flu is "shaping people's lives," Lora Kelley and Katherine J. Wu said at The Atlantic. More than 90 million poultry have died from the flu or been killed to contain the spread. "When you have that many chickens dying, egg prices are going to go up." The more troubling factor is "fatigue" over health threats. "Many people," Wu said, "are sick of thinking about respiratory viruses and taking measures to prevent outbreaks."

What happened

Dairy cows moved across state lines must now be tested for bird flu to help quash an  outbreak that has spread to at least 33 herds in eight states, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday. One Texas dairy worker contracted a mild case and the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it found inactive H1N1 viral fragments in pasteurized grocery store milk, though the risk to humans appears low.

Who said what

Dairy producers have been a "little bit" hesitant to "allow us to gather information from their farms," said the USDA's Dr. Michael Watson. This federal order will "really help us address any gaps that might exist."

The commentary

We may "get lucky with H1N1 and it will never manage to spread among humans," but "there is only a small window of time" to stop "dangerous novel pathogens" before they "spiral out of control," said Zeynep Tufekci at The New York Times. So far, we don't "seem up to the task."

What next?

FDA tests to confirm there's no live virus in pasteurized milk will be "available in the next few days to weeks," said food safety director Don Prater.

What happened

A dairy worker in the Texas Panhandle developed a mild case of H5N1 avian influenza after working with infected cows, Texas health officials said Monday. The patient is only the second person known to have contracted this strain of bird flu in the U.S. and the first anywhere infected through mammals, The Associated Press said.

Who said what

"Initial testing has not found changes to the virus that would make it more transmissible to humans," the CDC, FDA and USDA said jointly. "This indicates that the current risk to the public remains low."

The commentary

The Texas patient exhibited only eye inflammation, but the case "has alarmed disease trackers monitoring for the worst-case scenario: human-to-human transmission," The Washington Post said. Bird flu has been spreading through wild animals and, since March 25, dairy herds in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico, so the jump to humans "really wasn't a question of if but when," UTHealth Houston's Dr. Luis Ostrosky said to the Houston Chronicle.

What next?

The dairy worker is expected to fully recover. And there is no current plan to cull the infected herds, the USDA said. Pasteurized milk is believed to be safe.

Two poultry workers in England have tested positive for bird flu, the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) has announced.

Both had recently worked on an infected poultry farm and have since tested negative. The two cases were originally found during routine screening and neither worker experienced symptoms of avian influenza.

Bird flu detected in humans can either be a “true infection” or can occur “after the nose and throat are contaminated when breathing in materials on the affected farm”, said Sky News.

It is “unclear” in one of the two latest cases whether he was contaminated after inhalation or whether he was truly infected, added the outlet.

There are no signs of human-to-human transmission and the risk to the general population remains very low, the UKHSA said. Nevertheless, added a spokesperson, “we know that viruses evolve all the time and we remain vigilant for any evidence of changing risk to the population”.

Since December 2021, there have been just 13 human cases reported around the world. All of the cases occurred when the individuals came into close contact with infected poultry.

Although there is “no suggestion” H5N1 can pass between humans, if the virus did evolve to transmit between people, asymptomatic cases “would be a serious concern”, said the i news site.

The spread of bird flu to mammals, including foxes and otters in Britain, has stoked fears that the virus could one day pass between humans in a pandemic like Covid-19.

Professor James Wood, head of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC that the finding should lead to “greater attention” on asymptomatic infection and sampling.

The spread of bird flu to mammals, including foxes and otters in Britain, has stoked fears that the virus could one day pass between humans in a pandemic like Covid-19.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) maintains that the avian influenza H5N1 virus is still primarily a disease of birds, but experts around the world are “looking at the risks of it spilling over into other species”, said the BBC.

While some think the chance of human-to-human transmission is low, an outbreak among mink in Spain has caused particular concern.

How bad is the current avian flu outbreak?

The current outbreak of avian influenza is regarded as the worst ever in Britain, in Europe, and across the entire northern hemisphere.

According to the BBC, the virus has “led to the death of about 208 million birds around the world and at least 200 recorded cases in mammals”.

It has been found in grizzly bears in America, as well as dolphins. More than 700 seals were found dead in December in the Caspian Sea, near to the site of a large outbreak of H5N1 in wild birds months earlier.

How does avian flu spread to mammals?

In the UK, the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has tested 66 different species of mammals, and found four otters and five foxes were positive for avian flu.

While there is currently no evidence that bird flu can spread from fox to fox or otter to otter, “genetic sequencing of the virus from an October 2022 outbreak on a mink farm in Spain suggests the animals were infected with a new variant of H5N1 that could spread between mink”, said New Scientist.

Munir Iqbal, from the Pirbright Institute, told the magazine that more investigation is needed to confirm mammal-to-mammal transmission.

It has nevertheless “reignited long-smouldering fears that H5N1 could trigger a human pandemic”, said Science magazine.

Are these fears well founded?

Humans can catch bird flu. There have been six confirmed infections in the latest worldwide wave, including one death. But there is currently “no evidence that the virus can pass between humans”, the i news site said. The latest cases were all acquired “directly from close contact with poultry or other birds”.

“Yet researchers are worried that if the H5N1 virus mutates to transmit between mammals, it could soon be able to jump between human hosts,” said the New Scientist.

The discovery of H5N1 in the two UK mammal species has triggered a move to more “targeted surveillance and testing of animals and humans exposed to the virus in the UK”, said the BBC.

Prof Ian Brown, APHA’s director of scientific services, told the broadcaster he was “acutely aware of the risks” of bird flu becoming a pandemic like Covid-19. “We do need globally to look at new strategies, those international partnerships, to get on top of this disease,” he said.

Marion Koopmans, head of the department of virology at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam and a member of the World Health Organization team charged with tracing the origins of Covid, said: “We are playing with fire.”

If it can spread between mammals, there is an “opportunity for a virus from the risk list to pick up mutations which could make it transmissible between humans”, she said. “It didn’t happen this time, and it may not happen, but this is one of the scenarios from which a new pandemic could originate.”

Where did the new virus come from?

Bird flu, mostly of a mild kind, has always existed in birds, particularly migratory waterfowl such as geese and ducks (songbirds are largely unaffected). However, a new form of the H5N1 virus emerged in Asia in the 1990s in intensive poultry farms, an ideal viral breeding ground.

This was first detected in Guangdong province, southern China, in 1996, and spread to chicken farms in Hong Kong a year later, where it killed six people. In 2005, the virus caused a large outbreak among wild birds in Lake Qinghai in China, where nearly 200 migratory breeds congregated near large poultry farms.

Since then, the virus has infected wild birds in Europe, the Middle East and North America, and now circulates the world most years, often infecting farmed birds. The latest outbreak hit the UK in October 2021.

How is the situation different this time?

With a reproduction number as high as 100 (each infected bird can infect about 100 others), the latest bout of H5N1 has spread exceptionally quickly. It is “highly pathogenic”: it causes respiratory problems and diarrhoea, and is often fatal.

In previous years, outbreaks in Britain have been caused by migratory waterbirds arriving from Europe and the Arctic in autumn and winter, bringing the virus with them; but outbreaks have historically fizzled out once those birds have left in the spring.

This time has been different. For the first time, H5N1 spread to Britain’s nonmigratory wild birds, possibly owing to a mutation in the virus. In particular, it has affected seabirds, which live in huge, dense colonies on Britain’s cliffs and islands, making it easy for the virus to take hold.

What is the government doing?

In October, the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) imposed a bird flu “prevention zone” across the whole of Great Britain: free-range birds were to be kept within fenced areas, and other strict biosecurity measures were imposed. In November, Defra ordered all poultry and captive birds in England to be housed indoors; free-range eggs will be relabelled “barn-laid”. Those who have had to cull flocks are being compensated.

But some have criticised a lack of urgency in the official response. As bird flu spread through the Farne Islands last summer, for instance, not a single bird was tested for the virus. Guidance on collecting birds has been criticised as “patchy”, resulting in decaying corpses being left on the islands for weeks.

Free-range chicken and eggs could be a thing of the past in the UK due to the highly infectious avian flu that now appears “endemic”, experts have warned.

“The UK and continental Europe have been hit by the largest outbreak of avian flu on record this winter”, The Guardian reported. UK farmers have been under strict instructions to keep their birds indoors since last November.

The guidance means that chickens can no longer be labelled free-range, as UK regulations require free-range poultry to have access to the outside during daylight hours.

In December, Dr Christine Middlemiss, the country’s chief veterinary officer, told BBC Radio 4 that tens of thousands of captive birds at UK farms and sanctuaries had been culled after the “largest number of premises ever” reported cases of avian flu.

According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the risk to human health is “very low”, although diseased birds should not be handled or touched. But the outbreak “has huge human, animal, and trade implications”, Middlemiss warned.

How is avian flu spread?

The illness is “largely spread by migratory wild birds which return to Britain and pass it on to other birds”, said the BBC, and has no links to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Asked if the climate crisis might be to blame for the uptick in bird flu infections, Middlemiss said that “it’s certainly one of the thoughts that our experts are having”. She explained: “The birds migrate to the north of Russia over the summer and mix with other birds on other global flight pathways and exchange the viruses. So it’s quite plausible that with climate change and change in pathways that different mixing is going on.”

She said that “heightened biosecurity measures” would be needed until the end of the migratory season, which goes on until March.

An Avian Influenza Prevention Zone was declared across the UK on 3 November and was extended on 29 November. Under the restrictions, all bird owners must keep the animals indoors and follow “strict biosecurity measures”, regardless of “whether they have pet birds, commercial flocks or just a few birds in a backyard flock”, according to Defra guidelines.

Will UK outbreak affect food supplies?

Middlemiss told the Today programme in December that food supplies should not be affected, because the tally of affected premises was “a relatively very small number in terms of egg supply, meat, chicken and so on”.

She warned at the time that every bird where an outbreak has been confirmed would be killed, however, adding that “for those keepers affected, it is really devastating”.

But the regularity of avian flu outbreaks means that “free-range chickens and eggs may no longer be feasible to produce in the UK and elsewhere in Europe in future”, The Guardian reported.

Experts have suggested that “highly pathogenic variants of avian flu now appear to be endemic in wild birds”, the paper added, “creating a risk of infection all year”.

“There is a serious problem for free-range and outdoor farms,” said Dr Guillaume Fournié, a veterinarian and epidemiologist at the Royal Veterinary College.

“We are seeing outbreaks on large [indoor] poultry farms that would have had high biosecurity. This suggests that with high environmental exposure to the virus, now it’s hard to ensure a farm is 100% biosecure.”

This warning was echoed by Marion Koopmans, a virologist and adviser to the World Health Organization, who said the current situation is “horrible” for producers of free-range poultry.

“The ecology [of avian flu] has changed drastically in just a few years,” she said. “We now have local circulation all year round in Europe, it’s not just a seasonal threat. It has a permanent presence in the wild bird population.”

The World Health Organization has included “Disease X” in its latest blueprint for accelerating research and development during health emergencies such as Ebola or Sars epidemics.

This year’s global strategy plan is the first to feature an as-yet unknown pathogen, Disease X, which may not come from an identified source.

So should we be worried?

What is Disease X?

The WHO plan lists eight “priority diseases” that require immediate attention based on epidemic potential or lack of sufficient countermeasures or vaccines. The list includes Ebola and Zika, as well as Disease X.

According to the specialised UN agency’s definition, Disease X does not exist, but instead “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease, and so the R&D [research and development] Blueprint explicitly seeks to enable cross-cutting R&D preparedness that is also relevant for an unknown Disease X as far as possible”.

Experts say Disease X could be a mutation of an already known disease, such as influenza, which means its composition and effectiveness are near impossible to predict, the Daily Express reports.

Disease X “could also be deliberately developed and spread by humans”, the newspaper says, adding that “it is understood 16 countries including the United States, have had or are suspected of having biological weapons programmes”.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: “As experience has taught us, more often than not the thing that is going to hit us is something that we did not anticipate. Just the way we didn’t anticipate Zika, we didn’t think there would be an Ebola that would hit cities.”

As such, “X” stands for unexpected, he explained.

When might it hit?

There is no way of knowing when Disease X might hit, what it might look like, or how how we might tackle it, so speed and preparation are key to staving off the threat.

CNN says that “when confronted with the unknown, the WHO recognises that it must ‘nimbly move’ and that this involves creating platform technologies”.

Scientists develop customisable recipes for creating vaccines. When an outbreak happens, they can then sequence the unique genetics of the virus causing the disease, and plug the correct sequence into the already developed platform to create a new vaccine.

Could the H7N9 avian flu virus be Disease X?

The Daily Telegraph reports that scientists across the world are on high alert for a type of influenza currently circulating among poultry in China. Known as H7N9, the pathogen “could prove as destructive as the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed between 50 and 100 million people a century ago”, says the newspaper.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England with special responsibility for emergency preparedness and pandemic planning, told the Telegraph that the UK government was “gathering as much intelligence on the H7N9 virus as possible – looking at its geographic spread, the number of human cases and any changes in its genetic structure”.

Van-Tam said: “[H7N9] is an example of another virus which has proven its ability to transmit from birds to humans. It’s possible that it could be the cause of the next pandemic.”

In China, the deadly pathogen has killed 623 of the 1,625 people who have been infected so far, according to The Sun. That equates to a mortality rate of 38%. However, the virus cannot yet be transmitted between humans.

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A 41-year-old Chinese man has been confirmed as the first human to be infected with a rare strain of bird flu, in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

Officials said the risk of a “large-scale spread” remained low and the infected man, who was diagnosed last week, has already recovered and is ready to be discharged from hospital.

While it’s unknown how the man was infected with the rare H10N3 strain, the BBC reports that it is “not unheard of that people working with poultry occasionally get infected”, with several strains of the virus in circulation in China.

There has been no significant outbreak of bird flu since 2016 when the H7N9 strain killed around 300 people in China, reports The Guardian. The new H103N strain is thought to be far less severe, with no other cases of human infection reported globally.

What is bird flu?

Avian flu is a highly infectious type of influenza virus that infects birds, but certain strains have mutated and now have the ability to cause severe respiratory disease in humans. These include the H5N1 and H7N9 viruses, which both originated in China and have killed hundreds of people and millions of birds since the late 1990s.

Like any other type of flu, early symptoms include a cough, runny nose, high temperature and aching muscles. “Within days of symptoms appearing, it’s possible to develop more severe complications such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome,” says the NHS.

What happened in Jiangsu?

The Jiangsu resident was hospitalised on 28 April after developing a fever and other symptoms, eventually being diagnosed with H10N3 one month later, according to Beijing's National Health Commission (NHC).

His close contacts have been traced and observed and officials found no other cases of the strain.

“No human cases of H10N3 have been reported in the world. This case is an occasional poultry-to-human cross-species transmission, and the risk of a large-scale spread is extremely low,” said the NHC.

How dangerous is H10N3?

H10N3 is a “low pathogenic” strain of the virus found in poultry, according to China’s health commission.

The World Health Organization (WHO) echoed the words of the commission, stating: “At this time, there is no indication of human-to-human transmission.” However, it added that the incident served as “a vivid reminder that the threat of an influenza pandemic is persistent”.

Filip Claes, regional laboratory coordinator of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases, told The Guardian the strain is “not very common”, with only 160 isolates of the virus reported in the 40 years to 2018, mostly in wild birds or waterfowl in Asia and in some parts of North America, and none had been detected in chickens so far.

What other common strains are there?

Last November, an outbreak of the H5N8 variant among birds led to hundreds of thousands of poultry culled in the Netherlands and Germany, reports the BBC.

Like H10N3, the strain isn’t much danger to humans, but the economic costs of culls on this scale can be devastating to poultry farmers.

Other strains of the virus, however, can be much more concerning. The H5N1 strain of the virus has killed 60% of those infected - between 2003 and July 2014 there were 667 confirmed human cases of H5N1 infection in 15 countries, leading to 393 deaths.

The NHS currently lists four strains that have “caused concern” on its website, including H5N1, as well as the strains H7N9, H5N6 or H5N8. It says “no humans” have been infected with any of the strains in the UK, although H5N8 has been found in “some wild birds and poultry” in the country.

How does it spread?

Bird flu is typically spread through direct contact with infected birds, their droppings or secretions from their eyes or mouth, but there is no evidence that disease can be spread by properly cooked meat. Human-to-human contact is possible but extremely rare, according to the WHO.

How is it treated?

Treatment includes medication such as aspirin and paracetamol to help alleviate pain and fever. Evidence also suggests that some antiviral drugs can help reduce the severity of the disease and improve prospects of survival by stopping the virus from multiplying. Vaccines against the disease are currently in development, but are not yet ready for widespread use.

SCIENTISTS in China have warned of a potential pandemic after a new strain of bird flu – H10N8 – killed an elderly woman and infected another woman last month. Reporting in The Lancet, the scientists say the virus has a worrying genetic profile and should be closely monitored. So, should we be worried?

What is bird flu?

It's is a type of influenza virus that does not usually infect humans. However, certain strains have mutated and gained this ability. Recently, there have been human cases of other bird flu strains – H7N9 and H5N1.

What are the symptoms of H10N8?

The 73-year old woman, from Nanchang in China, is the first person known to have died from the new strain. She developed a fever, cough and a tight chest in late November last year, and was admitted to hospital. Despite treatment with antibiotics and anti-virals, she developed severe pneumonia, many of her organs began to fail and she died on 9 December. Late last month, another case of H10N8 was reported in a 55-year old woman, also living in Nanchang. She is in a stable condition.

How does it spread?

Bird flu is spread through direct contact with infected birds, their droppings or secretions from their eyes or mouth. Both women infected with the virus in China had visited poultry markets and scientists say the birds are likely to be the source. Experts are worried that H10N8 may have features that would enable it to spread from human to human, but so far there is no evidence that it can. There are also concerns that the virus could evolve or mutate to become more infectious.

Should we be worried?

The new strain does not appear to pose a huge concern in its current form. As yet, there have only been two cases and the woman who died was said to have other medical conditions that may have made her frail and susceptible to the infection. Nevertheless, Dr Jeremy Farrar, of the Wellcome Trust, has told the Daily Telegraph we should always be worried when a virus jump from birds to people as it is unlikely that we will have prior immunity to protect ourselves. H7N9, which emerged last year, led to 159 human infections in China, including 71 deaths, while H5N1, which first occurred among humans in Hong Kong in 1997, has caused 648 infections with 384 deaths since 2003.