STAT recently spoke to Erica Pan, California’s state epidemiologist, about what public health officials are doing to monitor for human H5N1 infections. The conversation, which took place before California announced its human cases, has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Sixteen human bird flu cases have been reported in the United States this year, including the two workers who tested positive in California. Fifteen of those cases were in farm workers at infected poultry or dairy farms.

A California dairy worker appears to be the state’s first person infected with the bird flu, officials announced Thursday. The worker health officials identified was at a dairy facility in California’s Central Valley,