True. However, influenza has a habit of hybridizing.
It is quite possible for the avian flu to infect somebody with a flu strain that IS contagious from person to person. In such a case, genetic recombination might create a strain that is as lethal as the avian flu and as contagious as the common flu.
I am not saying that it will happen, but it is not without precedent. Remember 1918.
