It is not a question of if, but when, the next pandemic will strike a major political, financial or industrial centre and force its complete (albeit temporary) isolation from all physical flows in the global system – with giant but hard-to-predict consequences.
Nature never gives up cascading pathogens. Whether it is Zika, H5N1, Ebola, SARS, the declining efficacy of antibiotics or some, as yet, unknown pathogen, our preventive defences will be defeated. The only real uncertainty is when and where, and how quick and effective our best-laid reaction plans will prove to be. What will be the scale of economic, political, cultural and religious consequences? Recent simulations have shown that a contagious airborne pathogen (like H5N1) carried into any major airport on any continent would be global within three days at most. If the infected individual took just two plane journeys prior to public health quarantine, more than 5 billion people (75 percent of humanity) would need to be vaccinated to prevent a global pandemic. After three flights, global vaccination would be required.
Plague has always blighted our existence with depopulation, devastation and disruption. One of history’s biggest Black Swan events, the Black Death (1348-1350), killed at least 75 million people reduced the European population by at least one-third, perhaps up to one-half. Pandemic models show that a human H5N1 pandemic today could easily surpass those mortality totals to infect 1 billion people and cause up to 150 million deaths.
It is a biological certainty that pathogens will relentlessly assault our increasingly packed, interconnected populations and turn our connectedness against us. Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna warn that our 21st century world ignores the lessons of the old Renaissance at its peril. Likewise, we ought not lose sight of hope: the aftermath of Europe’s Black Death included a younger, fitter population, and great cultural, political, economic, scientific and religious change. Age of Discovery draws the parallels, identifies the differences, details the risks and opportunities as well as celebrates the opportunities inherent in our contemporary new Renaissance.
