Well, this is scarey. 60 Minutes on the bird flu. [View all]
Dr. Angela Rasmussen is an American virologist working in Canada. Rasmussen told us it's not just the number of human cases that is alarming, but that the virus is jumping to more mammals. Every new spillover gives the virus another chance to evolve and potentially spread person to person.
Bill Whitaker: So we are now seeing the virus has spread from birds to cattle, and now to foxes, goats, pigs, rats, cats, raccoons–
Dr. Angela Rasmussen: The fact that this virus can infect so many different types of mammals is a huge concern in terms of its ability to infect people.
Bill Whitaker: One of your colleagues told us that if this should spiral into a pandemic, this flu could make Covid look like a walk in the park.
Dr. Angela Rasmussen: I agree.
Bill Whitaker: You're scaring me.
Dr. Angela Rasmussen: I'm scared about it myself. I don't sleep very much these days, Bill.
Bill Whitaker: Has the Trump Administration gotten its arms around this problem?
Dr. Angela Rasmussen: No, I would say is the short answer. But the other-- the longer answer is that I don't actually entirely know what is –what is going on.
Bill Whitaker: Why is that?
Dr. Angela Rasmussen: Many of the people who were working on this, at least at CDC, have--have been fired from the federal government. So the influenza division at CDC has been decimated, and in fact, there is a communications ban that has been put on these federal workers.
Bill Whitaker: -- what do you think of that?
Dr. Angela Rasmussen: I think it's insane, actually, that I have to have conversations on encrypted messaging apps with my colleagues, who I would normally just send emails to.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-risk-as-pathogen-spreads-60-minutes-transcript/
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