Here We Go: Bird flu warning from scientists 'This could be 100 times worse than Covid'

A bird flu pandemic could be '100 times worse than Covid' and kill up to half of everyone it infects, experts have warned — as the White House says it is 'monitoring' the situation.

Speaking at a briefing, virus researchers said the H5N1 strain of bird flu may now be getting 'dangerously close' to triggering a pandemic.

Multiple cases of the infection in a variety of mammals, including cows, cats and, more recently, humans, are all raising the risk of the virus mutating to become more transmissible, they said.

But others attending the briefing said it was too early to panic because there were still too many unknowns about recent cases to warrant sounding the alarm.
A White House representative said today it was tracking bird flu in the US, adding: 'We take the health and safety of the American people seriously.'