Dairy workers in Texas show signs of prior, uncounted bird flu infections in a new study. Without labor protection and better health care, cases are bound to quietly rise as the outbreak among livestock blazes in the United States.
Because it literally is an avian influenza virus that just doesn’t spread between mammals too well yet but they can still get it from birds, and “bird flu” is going to be a bit pithier and more memorable than “influenza A virus subtype H5N1”. What does it being dangerous have to do with any of this?
Bird flu is just a term in common usage. If “reading the CDC’s website for 15 seconds” can be counted as research, after my ‘research’ the more professional verbiage is ‘Avian Influenza A(H5N1)’.
Thankfully I’m not a bird. Thankfully cows aren’t birds.
But if it’s seriously a danger, then why do they call it bird flu, and not just influenza type whatever?
Because it literally is an avian influenza virus that just doesn’t spread between mammals too well yet but they can still get it from birds, and “bird flu” is going to be a bit pithier and more memorable than “influenza A virus subtype H5N1”. What does it being dangerous have to do with any of this?
Bird flu is just a term in common usage. If “reading the CDC’s website for 15 seconds” can be counted as research, after my ‘research’ the more professional verbiage is ‘Avian Influenza A(H5N1)’.