Like It Or Not, We Now Live in a Pandemic Society

Every morning and evening, the rooster down the way crows to announce he is the boss.

I have joked with my husband that the neighbors are a little wacky for keeping chickens. We live in a suburb, not the country. It used to be a country town, but it is still a suburb at this point.

So when I was at Meijer and saw this sign, I did a double-take. And couldn’t believe it:

Avian flu is insidiously spreading across the country.

Just Recently, It Infected Someone With No Known Contact With Chickens

Case #14 is the canary in the coal mine.

Up until last Friday afternoon, a total of 13 people in the United States had officially come down this year with avian influenza H5, also known as bird flu. A subtype of that virus, a potential pandemic pathogen called H5N1, has for months been circulating in our dairy herds, and has already killed tens of millions of birds…