Health officials in Louisiana announced Monday the first bird flu death in the United States. The elderly individual, who had underlying medical conditions, was exposed to the virus from a backyard flock and wild birds.

There have been 66 reported cases of bird flu in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the risk remains low, the CDC’s former director has urged Americans to take the virus seriously.

Robert Redfield, who led the CDC during the first Trump administration, spoke with The Daily Signal last year about bird flu. He predicted bird flu, also known as H5N1, would be “much more catastrophic than the COVID pandemic.”

Redfield served on a nonpartisan commission on China and COVID-19, which last year released a report, “Holding China Accountable for Its Role in the Most Catastrophic Pandemic of Our Time: COVID-19.” He spoke to The Daily Signal about its recommendations in July.

An excerpt from our conversation is below. The full interview is available from “The Daily Signal Podcast.”

Rob Bluey: Could you share with us about some of the steps that you think policymakers in Washington should take now that they’ve had the benefit of seeing your COVID-19 report and some of the findings?

Robert Redfield: We need a 9/11-type commission to go through and really take this apart—a nonpartisan commission to really see what happened here, what went right, what went wrong, because I’m of the view, and some people may disagree with me, but I’m of the view that the most important national security threat that our nation has right now is biosecurity.

I think it’s a time for our nation to step back and realize that the playing field has changed, similar to what happened when, say, the atomic bomb came into the theater, and we’ve really realized that nuclear and atomic issues had a central piece in our national security posture. Well, I’ll argue biosecurity needs to have that central piece.

So, part of it is to go through … and take a good look at it. And really start to look at what is it that we need to do to be better prepared because I’m also of the point of view that we are going to have another pandemic. I do believe it’s going to be much more catastrophic than the COVID pandemic. I refer to the COVID pandemic as........

© The Daily Signal