So the bird has come home to roost. H5N1, that avian spectre, now spans every continent, and Whitehall has raised its biosecurity to a level not seen since foot-and-mouth. But let us not pretend this is a mere veterinary inconvenience.
This is a parable for our decadent age. We have industrialised nature, packed poultry into hellish factories, and now nature retaliates with a virus that mocks borders. The Victorians, for all their faults, at least understood quarantine with a proper sense of grim duty.
Today, we have panic masquerading as preparedness. The virus mutates; we wring hands. The fall of Rome was preceded by plagues, and though we fancy ourselves modern, the lesson remains: empires that ignore the stench of their own crowded barns deserve the pestilence that follows.
Let the scientists race for a vaccine, but pray they also teach us humility. Otherwise, this avian warning will be but the first cough in a pandemic symphony.
