The widening U.S. bird flu outbreak has made its way to Maryland, which has counted two cases on commercial poultry farms — one in Caroline County and another in Queen Anne’s County — since the start of the year.

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.

Avian flu is rampant in poultry farms and in wild birds in the U.S. Every mutation brings the virus one step closer to the brink of human-to-human transmission, but predicting whether a virus will cross that threshold remains an uncertain science.

Current strains of bird flu are “poorly suited for pandemic potential,” said Dr. Shira Doron, a Tufts Medicine infectious disease expert.

A variant of the virus caused disease in people in 1997, when there was a small but deadly outbreak in Hong Kong. Eighteen people had confirmed diagnoses, and six of them died. Since then, there have been sporadic cases around the world—but no large outbreaks.

Georgia officials confirmed the state's first case of bird flu. Dr. Frita Fisher talks about the health implications of the bird flu and what precautions Georgians can take.