Prophet who predicted the pandemic issues terrifying warning after American is hospitalized with virus never before seen in humans
The science writer who predicted the COVID pandemic seven years before it swept the globe is now raising the alarm over a new ‘serious warning event’ in the US.
David Quammen warned in his 2012 book, Spillover, that the world’s next pandemic would come from a coronavirus that spills over from a wild animal in a wet market, possibly in China.
Now, he says he is concerned once again – this time about a new strain of bird flu never before seen in humans that has infected a person in Washington state and left them ‘severely ill’ for weeks.
‘This is another serious warning event of possibly the same scope as the earlier occasional infections of humans with H5N1,’ Quammen exclusively told the Daily Mail.
‘The roulette wheel on bird flu is spinning trillions of times a day right now. In each infected bird, the virus is multiplying millions of times. Each of those spins could turn up the four or five mutations that turn it into a human virus.
‘That could happen tomorrow, it could happen next year, it might not happen at all, but the point is, there is a chance it could happen. And, if it does, the consequences would be extremely severe.’
The Washington state patient, an older adult with underlying health conditions who kept a backyard poultry flock, fell ill in early November with a high fever, confusion and severe breathing difficulties. Health officials say their contact with their own birds is the most likely source of the infection.
The case has raised alarm bells because the patient was infected with H5N5, a type of bird flu never before seen in humans. Until now, all US human infections in this outbreak have involved the strain H5N1.
David Quammen, a science writer, has warned that the bird flu infection in Washington state is another alarming development. Pictured: USDA workers at a farm in Eden Valley, Minnesota, in April 2015; they were called to the farm amid a bird flu outbreak
Quammen said, however, that after speaking with scientists in the field, he does not believe H5N5 poses a greater threat than the more common strain.
‘According to what I’m reading, including sources, this is not especially important,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘H5N5 is a bird flu. It is not a bird flu that has become adapted to humans… and it is no more likely to be transmitted to humans than H5N1.’
Assessing the whole case, he added that ‘all of this is reassuring. The H5N5 infection rings an alarm bell, but there are no further alarm bells triggered around it.’
There is no current evidence to suggest that H5N5 is more likely to infect humans or more likely to cause severe disease than the H5N1 strain.
However, Quammen also warned there are likely other bird flu infections in humans in the US that have not been detected.
‘Yes, there probably are these cases,’ he said. ‘Particularly among dairy workers and poultry workers. No one is monitoring them, no one is testing them weekly for the virus.’
Quammen warned that every time bird flu infects animals, it raises the risk of the virus spreading to humans. Pictured: employees in New York cleaning cages and taking chickens to be slaughtered after an outbreak of bird flu in February
Quammen (pictured) is a science writer whose book Spillover, published in 2012, predicted the origins of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic
Since 2022, a total of 71 human bird flu infections have been recorded in the US, most linked to H5N1 spilling over from animals.
Patients have reported symptoms including red, irritated eyes, a cough, fever and muscle aches. One person, an individual in Louisiana with underlying health conditions, has died from the infection.
The latest case marked the first bird flu infection reported nationwide in seven months since the previous infection was detected in February.
His warning came after bird flu spread to dairy herds last year and led to more than 1,000 herds being infected with the disease.
Scientists warned at the time that this could also raise the risk of the virus gaining the mutations needed to start spreading between humans.
Of the 71 bird flu cases in humans reported across the US to date, 41 have been linked to dairy herds, while 24 were linked to poultry farms or culling operations.
More pressing at the moment, Quammen warned, is the upcoming flu season, which may lead to tens of thousands of deaths.
‘Meanwhile, we have the flu that is circulating, that is H3N2 – that is seasonal flu, the main strain this year,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘[The flu season] is starting already in Britain and Japan – it is pretty severe in Japan, it is causing a lot of sickness.’
In mid-October, Japan warned it was experiencing a flu epidemic much earlier in the year than normal.
In the latest data for the week of November 4, the nation’s capital of Tokyo had recorded six times the number of infections it normally would for this time of year.
More than 2,300 day cares and schools have also closed across Japan due to the outbreak.
In the UK, experts are warning the country could face its ‘worst flu season on record.’
Experts are now calling on governments worldwide to carry out more surveillance for the spread of bird flu among their livestock, including chickens (Stock image)
The CDC uses data from emergency department visits to model epidemic trends. This model helps reveal if the number of new respiratory infections is growing or declining in each state
Hospital admissions in Britain in early November were at a level not normally recorded until the start of December. Experts in Canada have also warned the nation could face a ‘worst of its kind’ flu season.
In the US, the CDC has said that flu activity remains ‘low,’ but it is rising. In the week of November 9, 2.1 percent of hospital visits were due to the flu compared to 1.8 percent in the previous week, according to official data.
A map tracking epidemic trends in the US related to flu shows cases of the virus are likely growing or currently growing in all states that report case numbers.
Last year, the US experienced its worst flu season since the 2017 – 2018 season. Up to 73 million people were infected, estimates suggest, while 1.1 million were hospitalized and 99,000 died from the disease.
