Bird flu is surging in the US again and has, once again, sent egg prices skyrocketing. Nearly 13 million birds have been infected or culled in the past month alone, contributing to shortages. A carton of eggs today costs more than $4 on average, up from about $2.50 a year ago.

Prices aren’t the only thing making headlines — the virus has recently taken a human life, too. After nearly three years of warnings from leading public health and animal agriculture experts that bird flu was becoming a threat to human beings, Louisiana health officials reported earlier this month that an individual died from the virus, the first reported human death in the US from bird flu.

This particular strain of bird flu, H5N1, has been circulating in the US and infecting poultry since February 2022. So far, millions of birds have been infected or were culled to prevent further spread. But, as Vox reported previously, the concern has always been that this strain could jump from birds, then to another animal, and then to humans, and evolve along the way into something much deadlier to humans.

Last March, the virus made its way to US dairy cows. About a month later, Americans began getting infected in greater numbers — the majority of those infected, health officials say, were exposed to commercial cattle or poultry farms. Today, nearly 1,000 cattle herds across 16 states have been affected, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The deceased Louisiana patient, however, was infected by backyard poultry wild birds. The individual was older than 65 years old and had underlying medical conditions, which likely increased their risk for severe disease and death, as it does for conventional flu.

This case brings the total number of documented human infections in the US to 67. Human infections have been reported in 10 states so far, but most cases have occurred in California, where the governor declared a state of emergency in December.

As much as the death set off alarm bells, the risk to most people in the US from bird flu remains very low. Humans aren’t catching bird flu from one another right now. That could always change, though. The H5N1 virus could mutate in some way that makes it easily transmissible between humans. This is how a flu pandemic would begin.

And as long as that possibility remains, it’s easy to feel as though not enough is being done to prevent the possibility of another terrible pandemic, especially when influencers are touting raw milk as a potential, natural “medicine” for various ailments (it’s not) or when official government responses feel unclear or insufficient. (There is some truth to that.)

From egg prices and vaccines to pandemic potential and disease monitoring, here are five answers about the ongoing response to bird flu.

How is the government responding to bird flu — and is it doing enough?

Bird flu mostly spreads among wild and domestic birds, but the virus sometimes does spill over and infect other animals. In the past three years, bird flu has infected cows, seals, bears, dogs, cats, and a number of other mammals.

As with any major disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are working alongside state agencies to track cases in humans. But because most people eat animals for food, there are two other key players involved: the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The USDA leads federal efforts to monitor and contain bird flu among farm animals, live bird markets, backyard flocks, and wild animals. The agency

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