The feathered apocalypse has officially gone global. Australia, that sunburnt, upside-down refuge for everything that wants to kill you, has confirmed its first human case of avian influenza, H5N1. A child returned from India is the lucky winner of the viral lottery.
Now, bird flu has visited every continent save Antarctica, which is probably only a matter of time before a penguin sneezes on a research scientist. But let’s talk about the real issue here: the UK’s border preparedness, or more accurately, its complete lack thereof. Our ports are about as secure as a paper hat in a hurricane.
We’re still relying on the same leaky system that let in COVID, lorry-loads of illegal tobacco, and the occasional tiger. Yes, a tiger. At the port of Dover.
Nobody batted an eyelid. Meanwhile, the government has announced a 'robust' response plan, which I imagine consists of a man in a hi-vis jacket waving a thermometer at a swan. The official line is that the risk to the public remains low.
Low. The same phrase they used when COVID was 'just a bad flu'. The same phrase they use when the trains are late.
The same phrase they use when the tea is lukewarm. It means nothing. It means 'we haven't got a scooby'.
Let’s look at the facts. Bird flu has a mortality rate in humans of around 50%. That’s not a typo.
One in two. It makes COVID look like a bout of seasonal sneezing. And here we are, complacent, arms folded, tutting at the weather.
Our poultry industry is already on its knees. Mass culls. Free range eggs are a myth, a cruel fantasy.
And now the virus has learned to jump species with alarming efficiency. It’s in dairy cows in America. It’s in cats.
It’s in everything with a pulse. The only thing holding it back is a lack of practice. It hasn’t yet figured out how to go human-to-human efficiently.
But give it time. Evolution doesn’t take tea breaks. So what is the UK doing?
Stockpiling vaccines? No. Ramping up surveillance?
Don’t be silly. We’re doing what we do best: holding a meeting. A committee will be formed.
An inquiry will be launched. A report will be written. It will be filed under 'things we should have done'.
The Border Force, that heroic band of underpaid, overworked souls, will carry on checking passports and pretending to care about the cargo. Meanwhile, a single sick chicken could bring the whole house of cards tumbling down. We need to test every bird at every port.
We need to quarantine every traveller from affected regions. We need to stop pretending that 'business as usual' is a viable strategy. But that would cost money.
And inconvenience people. And we can’t have that. So we’ll stumble on, blindfolded, into the next pandemic.
The only question is whether it will be avian, swine, or something entirely new. My money’s on a bat-based pathogen from a Wuhan wet market. But I’m a cynic.
And a realist. So I’ll raise a glass of airport gin to the memory of the world before the great avian reckoning. It was good while it lasted.
Cheers.
