Bird Flu™ – now also with premium panic

The sky is full of feathers, the headlines are full of exclamation marks, and the press offices are running as hot as a rotisserie. The play's title: Bird Flu Hysteria – The Return of Old Patterns. Plot: Migratory birds as viral smugglers, farmers as extras in a precautionary operetta, virologists as tenors in the high C of warning cries. And us? An audience wearing masks, this time with very bad memories.

The invisible threat from afar (with stage fog)
Hundreds of thousands of animals culled "precautionarily"—a term that is simultaneously technocratic, hygienic, and utterly devoid of empathy. Who needs data when you have numbers? A case from Brandenburg provides the dramatic punchline: A single crane falls (of all things!) into a goose enclosure, and bam—the entire flock is infected. If it weren't so tragic, the script would be sent back: "Please write it more credibly. The bird comes across as an agent provocateur." But that's precisely how media narratives work—an anecdote with maximum fear-based ROI, exploited relentlessly until it sounds like the truth.

In Switzerland: For now, silence with binoculars. They're observing, "evaluating," reserving vaccine capacity, and in the meantime recommending the good old seasonal flu shot for everyone who works with birds. The advertising industry calls it a soft launch. Or: warming up for the big if-then.

Warning calls, waves, world spirit
The second act follows in textbook fashion: the expert commentary. Risks to people? "Low"—so far. But potentially… and here begins the imperative of possibility, the favorite grammar of modern panic politics. Mutations, spillovers, recombining hotspots on farms—the vocabulary is familiar, the images are striking, the script is well-known: Upgrade the pandemic plans, order fresh vaccines, rehearse the choreography. Finland is vaccinating parts of the risk groups, Germany is polishing its scenarios, Switzerland remains calm—with a built-in emergency clause. All very rational, all extremely well-prepared, all very much a 2020 déjà vu.

And that's precisely the problem: We haven't forgotten who held the baton in 2020. Back then, the conditioned subjunctive mood ("could," "possibly," "worst case") was enough to justify very real interventions. Today it's being heard again, only in different keys.

The Economics of Fear
There's no denying that H5N1 can be dangerous to see what's being sold here again: precaution as a complete work of art, with a familiar dramatic structure. First, the epic force of nature (migratory birds, the sky, fate), then the moral obligation (You don't want to be responsible!), followed by the technological solution (vaccine reservations, cascades of testing and reporting), flanked by the heavy-handed "better safe than sorry." The value chain of fear is running smoothly: the media gets clicks, authorities get justification, manufacturers get predictability, and politicians get narratives to act on. And farmers? Losses, compensation forms, and barns as crime scenes.

Anyone who has listened closely over the last 15 years – BSE, bird flu, swine flu, Corona – will recognize the same recurring stylistic devices: highlighting outliers, ignoring statistics, and cloaking causality in the subjunctive mood. Added to this is the pedagogical threat: "If you don't now…" It's the old pedagogy of finger-wagging as public health design.

Anecdotes are not evidence (except in evening programming).
The famous crane incident in Kremmen exemplifies this. Whether the case unfolded exactly as described is ultimately secondary – it serves its purpose: emotion replaces evidence. This works because images are more powerful than base rates. It's a statistical lesson that reliably leads to misjudgments: we mistake the spectacular for the typical and optimize policy at the margins, not at the core of the issue. The result: measures with high symbolism, low precision, and impressive collateral damage – especially for animals, businesses, supply chains, and prices.

“Pandemic potential” – the magic word
Nothing electrifies the hygiene elite quite like this word. It acts as an emergency exit for differentiation: It doesn't have to happen now – but it could at any time. And with this "could," any and all reinforcements can be justified. The logic: If the worst doesn't happen, the precautions were successful; if they do, we weren't precautionary enough. A closed circle, unbeatable in committees, useless in reality.

Of course, plans, storage facilities, and protocols are needed. But planning is not the same as politics. What's missing is the troublesome middle ground: measurable thresholds, clear exit criteria, genuine cost-benefit analyses – and the humility to sometimes say: "Monitoring is sufficient here. No need for showmanship."

The ethics of culling
We become shockingly accustomed to phrases like "500,000 animals killed" very quickly. The sterile vocabulary (culling, eradication, population control) is the linguistic disinfection of a massive intervention. Perhaps it would be beneficial to examine every "precautionary measure" using the same categories we constantly preach: proportionality, subsidiarity, transparency, accountability. How much risk was actually reduced? How much suffering was actually caused? How much trust was eroded?

Because that's precisely what it's about: trust. Anyone who has once based entire societies on the subjunctive mood has to live with the consequences today. Trust is less. So is patience.

What to do? (Besides applauding frantically)

• Evidence is required, not anecdotes. Anecdotes illustrate, they do not legitimize.
• Disclose the thresholds. When does what apply – and when does it no longer apply?
• Avoid cascades. Not every prevention idea requires the full range of measures.
• Speak clearly. Identify risks without blasting them at stadium volume.
• Honestly assess the costs. Including the ethical ones: animal welfare, livelihoods, trust.

Enough with the swan song
The real pandemic isn't the pathogen, but the routine dramatization. It consumes attention, budgets, and credibility – and fuels precisely the kind of politics we wanted to discard: activism disguised as care. H5N1 deserves vigilance, yes. But vigilance isn't the same as constant alarm.

When the next crane becomes a popular figure in the arts and culture section, we'll do something revolutionary: we'll wait for the data, not the headline. And we'll treat preventative care like medicine – with indications, dosage, side effects, and informed consent. Anything else is just the same old play in new guise.