Reply to Ramey et al.: Let time be the arbiter

We thank Ramey et al. (1) for their opinion that the article “The enigma of the apparent disappearance of Eurasian highly pathogenic H5 clade 2.3.4.4 influenza A viruses in North American waterfowl” (2) provides insufficient evidence to support the hypothesis that wild aquatic birds do not serve as the reservoir of highly pathogenic (HP) influenza A viruses. However, most of the concerns raised by Ramey et al. (1) are already discussed in our report (2) or resulted from a misinterpretation of our work. With regard to the disappearance of these viruses from North America, Krauss et al. (2) state that “we cannot conclude that the HP H5Nx viruses were … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: robert.webster{at}stjude.org. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1