When bird flu first struck dairy cattle a year ago, it seemed possible that it might affect a few isolated herds and disappear as quickly as it had appeared.<\/p>\n
Instead, the virus has infected more than 900 herds and dozens of people, killing one, and the outbreak shows no signs of abating.<\/p>\n
A human pandemic is not inevitable, even now, more than a dozen experts said in interviews. But a series of developments over the past few weeks indicates that the possibility is no longer remote.<\/p>\n
Toothless guidelines, inadequate testing and long delays in releasing data \u2014 echoes of the missteps during the Covid-19 pandemic \u2014 have squandered opportunities for containing the outbreak, the experts said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When bird flu first struck dairy cattle a year ago, it seemed possible that it might affect a few isolated herds and disappear as quickly as it had appeared.<\/p>\n
Instead, the virus has infected more than 900 herds and dozens of people, killing one, and the outbreak shows no signs of abating.<\/p>\n
A human pandemic is not inevitable, even now, more than a dozen experts said in interviews. But a series of developments over the past few weeks indicates that the possibility is no longer remote.<\/p>\n