As it stands, federal health officials say the risk avian flu poses to public health is low. If that were to change, hospital leaders say they don't feel any more prepared in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they fear they would face a repeat of challenges in securing adequate supplies to care for patients and protect the workforce.
"I don't think that we would do well if we were to be hit by a pandemic right now," Payal Patel, MD, an infectious disease physician at Intermountain Health, told Politico in a May 3 report. "What we've learned over the last few years is that it's really hard to predict what turn things will take — and also that it's important to learn from the past."
There is currently no evidence that the H5N1 bird flu strain infecting dairy cattle in at least nine states is spreading between humans. So far, there has been one confirmed human case tied to the outbreak, which affected a dairy farm worker in Texas in early April. The true scope of the outbreak is not clear, given dairy herds aren't routinely tested. Some scientists also believe there are more human infections that have gone undetected, given just 25 human samples have been sent to the CDC, according to The New York Times.
Speaking of a hypothetical scenario in which the disease did start to affect more humans, infectious disease physicians worry the workforce won't be prepared, given many clinicians haven't had time to recover from COVID-19 and continue to operate under strain amid ongoing labor shortages.
"We just simply do not have the manpower — currently — to care for the people that are coming in through our doors," George Diaz, MD, infectious disease specialist at Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health, told Politico. "We don't have an adequate supply of the people to care for the people."
Hospital officials anticipate there would be hurdles in securing the right amounts of testing supplies, antivirals and personal protective equipment. They fear lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic haven't been fully learned.
"There doesn't seem to be enough political motivation" for an adequate public health response, should bird flu spread more widely among humans, Bruce Farber, MD, chief public health and epidemiology officer at New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health, told the news outlet. "The politics are, if anything, further against public health than they were before the pandemic."
Federal officials say they have a head start in responding to a potential bird flu outbreak, given it is not a novel virus and disease surveillance is more advanced than it was when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
"We're not flat-footed," Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, told Politico.
There are millions of vaccine doses believed to be well-matched to H5N1 in government stockpiles that federal officials say would be ready to distribute quickly, should they be needed. Antivirals are also on hand, and manufacturing could be bolstered if needed, CDC officials have said.