How Scared Should You Be of Bird Flu?

How worried you should be about H5N1, the bird flu virus spreading on dairy farms in the United States, depends on who you are.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has described the current H5N1 risk to the general public as low. The risk that the virus poses is tempered by the fact that it doesn’t spread easily among people — yet.

Right now public health experts have the difficult task of urging authorities who can do something about H5N1 to take action while maintaining public trust. Americans have just been through a pandemic that resulted in over one million U.S. lives lost. They may feel weary of more bad news or fear-based messaging. It is not easy but is important to communicate that the threat level for most people is low but that if nothing is done, it could become quite high.

Experts need to be clear that currently the levers of action are squarely in the hands of government leaders and agricultural interests, not in the hands of the general public. But public attention is crucial to ensuring that authorities find the will to act.