Bad news for Trump supporters who were hoping for cheaper eggs: That won’t be happening any time soon. In fact, they might even be losing out on the whole chicken (and cow).
On Monday, the World Organization for Animal Health reported its first outbreak of the bird flu in poultry. The case was discovered on a duck farm in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom had already declared a state of emergency last month over rising concerns of the bird flu.
While bird flu cases are on the rise, President Donald Trump ordered the Centers for Disease Control to halt “public communications” until Feb. 1 as transitions are underway. The CDC was supposed to issue three public reports on the bird flu, all of which have now been blocked.
Within hours of the reported poultry outbreak, Trump ordered the CDC to cut ties with the World Health Organization. He also instructed health officials to stop communicating with WHO, even ordering employees not to enter any WHO facilities.
This follows last week’s executive order to withdraw the United States from WHO, though that does not take immediate effect as it requires approval from Congress and one year’s notice.
Over the weekend, Trump seemed to suggest that he would consider rejoining WHO should they “clean it up” and substantially cut the membership price for the United States. He specifically complained about the United States paying more than China, whose population is larger.
“We paid $500 million a year and China paid $39 million a year,” he said to a crowd during a rally in Las Vegas Saturday.
He continued to babble, “They offered me at $39 million, they said ‘We’ll let you back in for $39 million,’ they’re going to reduce it from [$500 million] to [$39 million], and I turned them down, because it became so popular I didn’t know if it would be well received even at [$39 million], but maybe we would consider doing it again, I don’t know, they have to clean it up a bit.”
Trump also cited WHO’s mishandling of COVID-19 as another reason to withdraw.
But as experts warn of “dangerous” milestones making way with bird flu cases in the United States, cutting off any amount of CDC resources is concerning to some. And while these experts are not yet worried about a bird flu pandemic, they say it’s not off the table.
“I’m still not pack-my-bags-and-head-to-the-hills worried, but there’s been more signals over the past four to six weeks that this virus has the capacity [to become a pandemic],” Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, told The New York Times.
For CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Nirav Shah, the bird flu is a “low risk, relative to the other risks they face today.”
However, he cautioned, “100%, that could change. This is a dangerous virus.”
Here’s to hoping Trump somehow prioritizes the health and wellbeing of Americans over getting a better business deal.
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