Disease forecasters are convinced there's a 27% chance of another COVID-like pandemic within 10 years.
Climate change, international travel and a growing global population are all among the factors scientists are citing for the increased likelihood of a severe pandemic occurring again within the next decade. London-based disease forecasting company Airfinity's latest risk modeling suggests that there is a 27.5% chance that a pandemic as deadly as COVID-19 could occur by 2033. Since its outbreak in 2020, coronavirus has claimed more than a million lives in the U.S. with more than 102 million cases confirmed, according to the WHO. The new research out of Airfinity suggests that viruses are emerging more frequently due to a combination of factors such as increasing international travel and populations, as well as climate change and an "increasing threat posed by zoonotic diseases." Zoonotic diseases are those which can transmit from animals to humans, like avian flu. Bird flu has been known to make the leap to humans, first occurring in 1997 and recently killed an 11-year-old school girl in Cambodia after both she and her father were infected. In a worst-case scenario, Airfinity suggested an outbreak of avian flu which could be transmitted to humans could kill as many as 15,000 people in the U.K. every day. Airfinity's conclusions are based on 150,000 simulations modeling various potential pathogens, which range in infectiousness, starting outbreak size, the population of the country of outbreak, and case fatality rate. There is good news The modeling company found that if lessons from the coronavirus pandemic are taken on board then…