Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

UniversityofBath OP t1_iqwuywm wrote

Reply to comment by Annual-Mud-987 in Hi, I’m Kit Yates. I’m a mathematical biologist at the University of Bath. I’m also a popular science author and a member of the scientific advisory group Independent SAGE by UniversityofBath

It's a great question.
That we had a pandemic of a respiratory virus I think was predictable and predicted. In that sense we should have been better prepared.
The exact timing and type of pandemic, however, is harder to predict.

Probably the best analogy is to earthquakes. It is almost impossible to predict particular earthquakes on any useful timescale before they happen, but actually we can characterise how frequently earthquakes of particular size happen in the long run. So while we can't prepare for a particular event we can prepare for generalities. In Japan, for example, they have an annual disaster preparedness day precisely because they are aware that the risks of earthquakes (and other natural disasters) there is high. In the UK, our relatively lower risk means that it probably isn't worth while to undertake these preparations.

4

Annual-Mud-987 t1_iqwxnv1 wrote

Very interesting thanks! Does that mean that scientists are looking at other coronaviruses for the 'next pandemic' or are they looking at lots of different possible viruses? I guess it could be any of them.

3

UniversityofBath OP t1_iqwyke4 wrote

I'm certainly not at the forefront of these efforts, but we have scientists looking at all sorts of emerging threats. Bird flu, for example has been a popular potential candidate to make the jump from animals to humans and thence to have human to human transmission.

In the UK we have NERVTAG - The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group for example.

3