Once we get an efficient human to human transmission of a strain of bird flu, I think we'll be in trouble very quickly.
I don't think we're there yet, simply because we don't have worldwide reports of people being stricken with a deadly flu.
But I'm not sure we'll get any warning. It might be two weeks from now and it might be two years, but I think we've passed the point of no return. It is too widespread in the poultry and wildfowl populations to control at this point, I think.
So somewhere, someplace, it's going to jump species into the next pandemic. But I don't know how you know it until it happens.
I'm absolutely sure we will NOT get any warning. The first US cases will be our only warning, just my opinion.