Nevada Cowpoke Catches Bird Flu

Bovines Blissfully Unawait of Their Role

CHURCHILL COUNTY, Nev.—The sagebrush state has added another dubious distinction to its résumé, as a local farmhand has earned the honor of being Nevada’s first human case of bird flu. According to the Central Nevada Health District, the unlucky fellow had the misfortune of mingling with dairy cattle of a particularly unsociable sort—ones harboring a strain of avian influenza, which is a mighty peculiar thing for a cow to do, but then, Nevada’s never done things by the book.

This latest affliction is just another feather—plucked clean, one might add—in the growing outbreak that has troubled nearly 70 folks across the country, mostly farm hands, since April. The H5N1 virus, in its relentless crusade against prosperity, has taken a swipe at America’s breakfast table, reducing milk yields and sending egg prices into the orbit usually reserved for gold and real estate speculation.

As for our Nevada victim, he appears to be on the mend, though he did suffer a bout of conjunctivitis, which is just a fancy doctor’s way of saying he got a case of pink eye—a condition as irritating as a telegraph operator who won’t take a hint. The health authorities assure the public there was no sign of person-to-person spread, meaning you may still tip your hat to strangers without fear of contagion. The CDC, ever the voice of alarm, has declared bird flu a “low risk” to the public, which is much like saying a rattlesnake in the bed is no trouble so long as it remains asleep.

In an unsettling twist fit for a frontier melodrama, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last week that yet another strain of this unwelcome pestilence—going by the alias of D1.1—has been discovered skulking about Nevada’s dairy herds. This particular miscreant was a favorite among wild birds last fall and winter and spotted loitering in poultry, where it has undoubtedly been up to no good.

Tragically, the state of Louisiana has already mourned a casualty linked to this D1.1 strain, proving that what starts with a ‘C,’ as in cow, can end in a coffin, with a ‘C.’ As Nevada joins this peculiar epidemic, one can only hope that its citizens will outwit the flu, the cattle will return to their traditional occupation of standing around looking contemplative, and the birds—the traitorous lot they are—will mind their own business.