If (and I emphasise IF) H5N1 led to a severe pandemic in humans, the assumption that it would play out like covid is a dangerous one.

Covid (pre-vaccine) posed an extremely low risk to children, little risk to young adults, a bit of a risk to the middle-aged, and a lot of risk to the elderly.

The 1918 flu pandemic, by contrast, killed people across the age range, disproportionately including young adults.

Were that to be repeated (and, again, there is no reason to think it will) I suspect that the cure-is-worse-than-the-disease thinking in places like Red America might not be nearly so strong.