Climate change may make pandemics like COVID-19 much more common --study

Climate change may make pandemics like COVID-19 much more common "We can't deal with pandemics with Band-Aids. Meaning after waiting until diseases show up, and then trying to figure out how to solve them." ABC News ABC News

The likelihood of an extreme epidemic, or one similar to COVID-19, will increase threefold in the coming decades, according to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers used data from epidemics from the past 400 years, specifically death rates, length of previous epidemics and the rate of new infectious diseases. Their calculation is a sophisticated prediction based on known risks and can be a useful guide for policy makers and public health officials.

They also found that the probability of a person experiencing a pandemic like COVID-19 in one’s lifetime is around 38%. The researchers said this could double in years to come.

The probability of another pandemic is "going to probably increase because of all of the environmental changes that are occurring," Willian Pan, an associate professor of Global Environmental Health at Duke University and one of the study's authors, told ABC News.

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