https://nypost.com/2024/04/04/us-news/bird-flu-pandemic-could-be-100-times-worse-than-covid-scientists-warn/ A bird flu pandemic with the potential to be “100 times worse than COVID” may be on the horizon after a rare human case was discovered in Texas, experts have warned. The US government is spending $1million of American taxpayer money to fund experiments on dangerous bird flu viruses in collaboration with Chinese scientists. The research involves infecting ducks and geese with different strains of viruses to make them more infectious, and study the viruses' potential to 'jump into mammalian hosts,' according to research documents. It is being funded through the US Department of Agriculture and collaborating studies will take place at sites in Georgia, Beijing and Edinburgh in Scotland. The H5N1 avian flu has spread rapidly since a new strain was detected in 2020, affecting wild birds in every state, as well as in commercial poultry and backyard flocks. But it has now even been detected in mammals, with cattle herds across four states becoming infected, and on Monday, federal health officials announced that a dairy worker in Texas caught the virus. “This virus [has been] on the top of the pandemic list for many, many years and probably decades,” Dr. Suresh Kuchipudi, a bird flu researcher from Pittsburgh, said at a recent panel discussing the issue, according to the Daily Mail. “And now we’re getting dangerously close to this virus potentially causing a pandemic.”