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Here we go again! Except this time, we’ve already read the script. CBS ran the story yesterday headlined, “California Gov. Gavin Newsom declares state of emergency over bird flu, calling it a "proactive action.”” Unleash the no-bid emergency purchasing powers!

So far, bird flu is just the same old recycled germ stupidity. (Replacing the first letter ‘b’ with a ’t’ provides a more apt descriptor.) “Common human symptoms of bird flu infection,” CBS reported, “are similar to the flu. The severity of the symptoms can range from none to severe.” Like flu. And, um, if symptom severity is “none,” then what are the ‘symptoms?’

And, if it’s similar to the flu, which we already live with, then how is it an emergency?

That’s just the beginning of the lost logic of bird flu. Even though it is bird flu, public health officials have aimed their gimlet eyes at cows. Californians, say goodbye to raw milk! Expect ranchers to be soon ordered to liquidate entire herds, so say hello to sky-high beef prices. Presumably, they will soon offer us sacks of “nut milk” and crates of cricket patties as greener alternatives.

Yesterday —the same day as California’s emergency declaration— the Washington Post reported, “CDC confirms first severe human case of bird flu in U.S.” It’s not the first case of bird flu. It is the first severe case. And the “first severe case” is an ailing old lady who “had been in contact with sick and dead birds in backyard flocks on their property.”

Emma Herrock, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Health Department,
said in an emailed statement Wednesday the patient is over 65 and has
underlying medical conditions. She declined to describe the person's
symptoms or severity of illness. Citing patient confidentiality, she said
there would be no updates about the patient's condition at this time.

In other words, she’s elderly. She has comorbidities. She has been messing around with dead animals. But they haven’t told us exactly how sick she is. In fact, they have no plans to ever tell us, either. They refuse to say exactly how old she is or what other health problems she has. Is she 99? 104? This is for “patient privacy.” You know.

I suppose one good thing is that, after demanding we tattoo our vaccine status on our foreheads to order a small fry at the drive-thru, public health has suddenly re-discovered the virtues of patient privacy.

Guess who’s running the federal response? This highly qualified Biden appointee:



That’s right! He’s back. Biden’s “Monkeypox Czar,” leather festival aficionado, and tattooed occultist Demetre Daskalakis is now, apparently, heading the CDC’s Bird Flu response. Because they only want the MOST qualified scientists, not lawyers like RFK. The new Bird Flu Czar delivered the CDC’s Bird Flu briefing in Atlanta yesterday and said his dark master Beelzebub has not yet deigned to claim any victims.

More to the point, there have been 60 reported bird flu cases in humans so far, and they’ve all been mild, and nobody died:

Public health officials are watching this case carefully because in all of
the other 60 cases of bird flu illness in the United States, patients have
experienced mild illness, such as pink eye, or mild respiratory
symptoms. They have all fully recovered, Daskalakis said. A teen in
Canada was hospitalized with an H5N1 infection, and in that case
officials have not been able to identify the source of exposure.

It’s terrifically disappointing for public health. The lack of any serious and fatal bird flu cases is holding Big Pandemic back. Corporate media is hoping against hope that the comorbid granny from Louisiana might be the one, the golden infectee who actually expires from her bird flu infection, permitting headlines breathlessly declaring “the first fatality” from the flu-like disease.

During the briefing, Daskalakis correctly noted that, at this point, the risk to people is low. Even that might be an overstatement. ChatGPT’s smartest model agreed this morning that “it's fair to say that the risk of dying from anything else is higher than the risk of dying from bird flu for the general public.”

They might get away with dumping a bunch of “emergency,” no-bid money on their friends and relatives for a disease that has unquantifiably low risk. But they are not going to run another pandemic on us, because we will not tolerate it. Not this time.