It has long been believed that David Quammen, a science writer, foresaw the Covid-19 breakout seven years before the global pandemic struck.
His book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, was published in 2012 after he conducted interviews with prominent experts in epidemiology and virology.
He cautioned that a coronavirus that was spilled from a wild animal in a damp market, presumably in China, would probably cause the next pandemic. He was absolutely correct.
The ‘next big one,’ which may already be spreading faster and farther than scientists realize, is making Quammen more anxious, he said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail.
He asserts that bird flu is the most likely to become the next pandemic, and other public health specialists have cautioned that as the virus flu spreads uncontrollably on farms, the United States is at risk of another epidemic.
More than 1,000 herds of dairy cows, 168 million chickens, and more than 70 human cases—including the first recorded death—have been impacted by the H5N1 outbreak.
Mr Quammen told this website, “I have high concerns about bird flu. If you’re going to make a prediction about what would be the next big one now, a scientist would probably say, well, bird flu has the best chance of being our next pandemic virus. “
“But there’s always a lot of randomness built into this because these viruses have high mutation rates and mutation is basically a random process.”