Flu-ke

The first death from Covid-19 was reported on 11 January 2020. By then it was too late to act. The disease had already spread across most of the planet. Within two months, much of the world was in lockdown.

So the news yesterday that an 11-year-old girl in CambodiaA country in South East Asia bordered by Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. has died of avian flu, or H5N1, sent a shiver down many spines. Until now, H5N1 has not been very effective at spreading to humans. But the World Health OrganisationThe United Nations agency responsible for global public health. thinks the Cambodian case might mean it has evolved.

Some experts say even if this does happen, there may be no cause for alarm about a new pandemic. We are much better prepared for a bird flu pandemic than we were for Covid-19.

This is partly because we have learnt from our experience of the Covid pandemic. When the virus struck, there were weeks of confusion as ministers debated the best measures to take. Now we can act much more quickly.

Because of Covid, we know how important frequent testing and vaccines are for ending the pandemic, and we have systems in place to roll them out as quickly as possible.

But even before Covid-19, the UK was better prepared for a flu pandemic. Health experts assumed flu was the most likely cause of the next pandemic, and they based their planning on this idea.

In 2016, the UK government even carried out an exercise called "Exercise Cygnus" in which they simulated the effects of an avian flu pandemic on the UK.

In fact, some have suggested that this was one reason for Britain's slow response to Covid. Leaders stockpiled flu medicines and vaccines for existing flu viruses.

All this planning was unhelpful in 2020, but it means many countries are still well-prepared for a new flu virus today.

And it is most likely, experts say, that the virus never becomes an emergency. Because Covid-19 seemed to come out of the blue, we tend to forget that there have been many other viruses that have briefly caused panic, and then fizzled out.

For example, in 2014 there was an outbreak of MERSShort for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Another type of coronavirus, it is also known as camel flu., colloquially known as camel flu, in Saudi ArabiaThe second-largest country in the Arab world, with a population of nearly 35 million. . In 2018, it spread to South KoreaAn East Asian nation on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, it shares one of the world's most heavily militarised borders with North Korea. South Korea has a population of about 52 million., and many feared it would soon go global. Instead, the number of fatalities from the disease has stayed below 1,000.¹

However, some are not convinced. They say the world's recent experience of Covid-19 means we are much less prepared for a new pandemic.

They think it would be very difficult to persuade everyone to take the same drastic measures to stop the spread of the virus that they did in 2020. People are not willing to make any more sacrifices.

And there is more, not less, disagreement over which measures are and are not effective since the end of the pandemic. Lockdowns and face masks have both become more controversial as scientists review the evidence.

Moreover, Covid-19 gave rise to a new host of conspiracy theories about a nefariousWicked or criminal. world order controlling people's lives and minds with lockdowns, masks and vaccines. A new pandemic, and measures to control it, would only radicalise still more of the population.

Yes: We have long recognised that avian flu could be a serious threat to human beings. Now we are experiencing the first fatalities. This is how every pandemic starts.

No: This is not the first localised outbreak of bird flu, and it will not be the last. There is no evidence that it is about to become a pandemic: right now, it struggles even to infect humans.

Or... It does not really matter how infectious the disease is: what matters is our planning. The state is better prepared for a flu pandemic, but the people might not be ready to go through it all again.