'We are screwed': Virologists warn about disease they say could become the next pandemic

A new report from PBS highlights the potential danger of bird flu turning into a full-blown pandemic in the United States.

In particular, PBS spoke with several experts who said the United States has been behind the ball when it comes to keeping a handle on the pandemic and they point to the fact that the United States Department of Agriculture has only recently started testing milk nationwide for bird flu contamination.

"It's disheartening to see so many of the same failures that emerged during the COVID-19 crisis reemerge," explained Tom Bollyky, the director of the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Health Program.

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, expressed a similar dismay at the American government's slow response to bird flu so far.

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“We are in a terrible situation and going into a worse situation,” she said. “I don’t know if the bird flu will become a pandemic, but if it does, we are screwed.”

Tom Peacock, a bird flu researcher at the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom, said that the real danger could come if the bird flu virus mutates in a way that makes it easily transmissible between humans.

“Even if there’s only a 5 percent chance of a bird flu pandemic happening, we’re talking about a pandemic that probably looks like 2020 or worse,” he told PBS. “The U.S. knows the risk but hasn’t done anything to slow this down."