If one thing seems to symbolize this current moment in time in the U.S., it's eggs. They represent inflation, a worsening bird flu outbreak, and a fraught political landscape. And, unfortunately, it looks like things are only going to get worse in the egg-scape—both in terms of shortages and skyrocketing prices.
RELATED: New Map Tracks Bird Flu Cases as U.S. Reports First Human Death.
Bird flu is worsening across the U.S.
The H5N1 bird flu began spreading in wild birds in the U.S. in 2022. For the first time in the country, it also spread among dairy cattle in 2024.
According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—which, it should be noted, has not been updated since Feb. 6 due to orders from the Trump administration—the following represent current outbreak numbers since 2022 (save for dairy cattle, which is cumulative since March 2024):
- 11,627 wild birds detected in 51 jurisdictions
- 156,254,271 poultry in 51 jurisdictions
- 959 dairy herds in 16 states
It's hitting chickens especially hard, leading to an egg shortage.
Between November and January alone, 30 million chickens—"roughly 10 percent of the nation’s egg-laying population"—were killed to prevent the spread of bird flu, according to a recent report by The New York Times.
"It could take months before the supply of egg-laying chickens returns to the normal level of around 318 million, roughly the equivalent of one chicken per person," they explain.
On Feb. 7, an Ohio farm building with a permit to hold 280,000 pullets (young hens that are raised to eventually lay eggs) was destroyed by a fire.
And as of Feb. 10, all live poultry markets in New York will be shut down until at least Feb. 14 for disinfecting and inspection after bird flu was found at some facilities.
"This is the most devastating wave of the bird flu outbreak we’ve seen since it began to spread three years ago," Karyn Rispoli, the egg managing editor at Expana, a firm that collects and tracks the price of eggs, told the Times. "And this time around farms that cater to the retail sector have been disproportionately impacted and that is leaving a big, gaping hole."
All of this has led to a nationwide egg shortage. In the Chicago area, for example, shoppers regularly share photos of completely empty shelves. In the Chicago suburb of Mount Prospect, Costco has set a three-egg-carton limit.
Meanwhile, Trader Joe's imposed a limit across the country. "Due to ongoing issues with the supply of eggs, we are currently limiting egg purchases to one dozen per customer, per day, in all Trader Joe’s stores across the country,” Trader Joe’s spokesperson Nakia Rohde said in an email to WGN9.
And the shortage is driving up prices.
Last week, Waffle House added a 50-cent surcharge for anyone ordering an egg dish at one of its 1,900 locations. Some restaurants are even switching to cheaper liquid eggs.
According to Expana data obtained by The New York Times, "grocery stores and restaurants are now paying around $7.79 for a dozen Midwest large eggs, the industry standard, up from $3.33 a year ago." This means each egg costs about 65 cents.
For consumers, egg prices are up 37 percent from a year ago. More alarming, as Bloomberg reports, is that a dozen large eggs now cost an average of $7.08 in the Midwest, a whopping sevenfold increase from two years ago.
And though Americans feel like their wallets are taking a hit, it could actually be much worse. As the Times explains, most supermarkets classify eggs as "loss leaders," meaning they sell them for less than wholesale to get shoppers in the door.
Will the egg shortage get better?
It's hard to say if the egg shortage will ease up and lower prices.
"It could take six months for the market to stabilize," Brian Moscogiuri, a vice president at California wholesaler Eggs Unlimited, told the Times. "We need to see outbreaks of avian influenza stop. We need a period of time when the farms aren’t being impacted and can repopulate their chickens and we need to see demand start to slow down."
However, on Jan. 31, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed that a new strain of avian influenza was detected among dairy cattle in Nevada. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) then put out a report that this new strain "may help the virus more easily copy itself in mammals—including humans," according to Fortune.
Many virologists and scientists are calling on the Trump administration to create a focused strategy for addressing the spread of bird flu.
"To better control risk...we should aggressively ramp up testing and isolation of affected dairy herds and animals, facilitate more widespread surveillance and testing in people, and accelerate vaccine development and production," James Lawler, director of the University of Nebraska’s Global Center for Health Security, told Fortune.
