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 Louisiana patient who had been hospitalized with the first human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or H5N1, in Louisiana and the U.S. has died, the state's health department reported Monday. This marks the first human death related to bird flu in the U.S.

There is still a danger, however: a person in Louisiana recently became the first person in the country to die from H5N1. Louisiana health officials said the patient was over the age of 65 and had underlying medical conditions. They contracted bird flu after exposure to a personal backyard flock and also wild birds.

In its announcement this week of the first human death from bird flu in the United States, health officials in Louisiana were quick to note that the patient was over age 65 and “reported to have underlying medical conditions.

Any 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,

The CDC says the risk of bird flu to the general public is low, but public health experts say they are worried the virus could mutate and become more transmissible.

For the first time, a person in the United States has died after being infected with the bird flu. The World Health Organization says the risk of infection for the general population remains low, but as VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports,