For subscribers
I ran Operation Warp Speed, and I’m concerned about bird flu
Avian influenza might mutate to enable human-to-human transmission.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
So far, there have been no reports of person-to-person spread of H5N1, though there have been at least 55 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans in the US.
PHOTO: AFP
David A. Kessler
As Donald Trump gets ready to return to the White House on Jan 20, he must be prepared to tackle one issue immediately: the possibility that the spreading avian flu might mutate to enable human-to-human transmission.
I was the Biden administration’s chief science officer during Covid-19. I was a co-leader of Operation Warp Speed, which began in Trump’s first term to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines. I worked on the purchase and roll-out of hundreds of millions of doses and on developing antiviral treatments. One of my jobs was to assess the trajectory of the virus.
