Bird flu outbreak in cows: Lessons learned from COVID-19 failures

Scientists are taking lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to mitigate the potential threat of the highly pathogenic avian influenza, a bird flu known as H5N1, currently circulating among livestock in the United States and in the domestic dairy supply.

The Food and Drug Administration responded to growing scientific concern about the outbreak this week by announcing on Thursday that H5N1 virus particles had been detected in 20% of tested samples in the commercial milk supply. 

Andrew Pekosz, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Washington Examiner the testing protocol from the FDA and Department of Agriculture that gave this result closely mirrors that used during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when individuals with symptoms were

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