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.

A person in Louisiana who was hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu has died. The hospitalization, first announced Dec. 13, marked the first severe case of H5N1 bird flu in the United States. H5N1 is a subtype of bird flu that's been circulating among wild birds and poultry in the U.

The bird flu, also known as avian influenza and H5N1, was implicated in the first human death from the infectious disease on January 6. But still, no human-to-human transmission has been reported.