🦠 SARS-3: The next pandemic will be much worse than COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly disrupted our lives and caused millions of deaths, but specialists warn that the next global health crisis could be even more devastating. A new book titled "The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics" describes a plausible scenario where a more deadly coronavirus would emerge and spread globally, despite the efforts of health authorities.

Michael Osterholm, founding director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and award-winning author Mark Olshaker analyze in their book the lessons learned from past pandemics to mitigate the impact of a potential "SARS-3".


They emphasize that even without contracting the virus, no one would escape the societal repercussions. Global supply chains would be severely disrupted, leading to shortages of essential products like food, medicine, energy, and spare parts for critical infrastructure. COVID-19 revealed how interdependent our economies are.

Pharmaceutical production constitutes a major vulnerability, since the majority of vital generic drugs come from China and India, countries highly exposed to pandemics. Relocating this production would require government subsidies, as profit margins are too low to attract private investors. This dependence creates a strategic risk for Western countries, especially since industrial consolidation in these regions increases supply chain fragility.

International cooperation appears as an absolute necessity to face future pandemics. The principle that "no one is safe until everyone is safe" remains more relevant than ever, as Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg reminded us. The authors criticize the imbalances observed during COVID-19, where wealthy nations accumulated vaccine surpluses while poor countries desperately lacked them.

The ethical and logistical challenges are immense. It will be necessary not only to develop new effective vaccines, but also to plan for increased production capacity, efficient distribution systems, and international funding mechanisms. The question of equitable access to antivirals will inevitably arise, with difficult decisions regarding treatment priorities between healthcare workers, elderly people, and essential workers. These considerations must take place in advance.

The unpredictable nature of viruses adds a layer of complexity. While SARS-CoV-2 primarily affected elderly and immunocompromised people, the next pandemic could strike healthy young adults, as during the 1918 Spanish flu. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), an overreaction of the immune system that damages the lungs, remains difficult to treat on a large scale. The global medical community is hardly better prepared today than a century ago to handle millions of simultaneous cases.