With reports of the first human death from bird flu in the US, some Americans are feeling an uncomfortable flashback to the early days of Covid-19, when infectious disease experts were talking about a new virus that was sending people to the hospital with respiratory infections.

A ny time a person catches H5N1, or bird flu, their infection is a chance for the virus to mutate in the wrong direction. When someone dies from the bird flu—as an elderly Louisiana man did on Jan. 6, becoming the first U.S. death from the disease—experts get especially concerned.

The United States has reported its first human death from H5N1 bird flu, marking a somber moment in the ongoing outbreak of the virus. The Louisiana Department of Health announced in a statement on Monday that a patient over the age of 65,