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.”
He did, however, emphasize that the variety would be “an extremely dangerous” virus if these haphazard mutations made the H5N1 bird flu virus capable of infecting humans and spreading readily from person to person.
Mr Quammen continued, “Just the way the Covid virus went from being a rare virus to being a virus in humans and in wildlife all over the planet, that could happen starting tomorrow with bird flu.”
In addition to being confirmed in cats, raccoons, skunks, wild canines, bears, and dolphins, the H5N1 strain of avian flu was initially identified in the United States in 2022.
There is currently no proof of person-to-person transmission, and human cases can be linked to interaction with sick animals.
Although experts warn that mutations and reassortments, which occur when two viruses infect a host at the same time and exchange genetic material, could increase the risk of bird flu, the CDC has maintained that the risk to humans is still minimal.
The Global Virus Network (GVN) is now calling on governments throughout the world to increase surveillance and enforce more stringent biosecurity measures in order to combat the threat posed by H5N1 avian influenza.
In order to prevent a chaotic series of events reminiscent of the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, the organization also cautions that nations need to prepare for the likelihood of human-to-human dissemination.
However, Mr. Quammen stated that there is a chance that a worldwide pandemic will never occur due to the unpredictability and variability of viruses.
However, he emphasized that placing a wager on this result is akin to placing a wager on a roulette wheel.
He told the Daily Mail, “It might take four or five mutations of just the right combination to do that, and each of those mutations is a highly improbable event. And the combination of the right four or five is therefore an even more improbable event.”
He clarified that it is the same as roulette. There is very little chance that a roulette ball will land on the number and color you have bet on, and much less chance that two roulette balls will land on the two numbers and colors you have selected.
However, he cautioned that the likelihood of the balls landing in the correct places increases with the number of times you spin the wheel.
“And if you spin the wheel a billion times, eventually it will happen,” he added.
Mr Quammen continued, “Now, what’s happening with bird flu right now is we are spinning the wheel billions and billions of times because this virus is replicating itself by the billions in each individual bird that it infects – probably every day.”
“My sense is this virus is replicating itself around the world continually right now, in millions of wild birds, in probably millions of chickens and in quite a few cows and other mammals.”
“All of those replications, each individual viral replication in each animal, is a spin of the roulette wheel.”
“I’m not saying it’s a certainty that bird flu will be our next pandemic; I’m just saying that it’s a very very distinct possibility.”
In January, the first recorded bird flu death in the United States occurred in Louisiana, where a patient died following hospitalization due to severe respiratory symptoms.
According to health officials, the individual was over 65, had preexisting medical issues, and had come into contact with dead and ill birds from a backyard flock.
They stated a genetic examination of the patient’s infection indicated the bird flu virus had changed while within their body, which could have resulted in a more severe disease, but no additional details were disclosed.
The majority of the 70 confirmed bird flu cases that have been recorded in the United States since March 2024 have been mild, and the majority have been found in farmworkers who have been in close proximity to sick poultry or dairy cows.
But in two cases, a toddler in California and an adult in Missouri, health officials have not been able to identify how they got the virus.
Furthermore, although almost all human cases have been linked to contact with infected animals, Mr. Quammen is “absolutely” concerned about the consequences for public health and food safety because bird flu has been found in milk in American grocery stores.
The risk of contracting bird flu is not limited to consumers consuming the meat or eggs of the 34 billion hens in the world; farm workers handling diseased birds run the risk of catching the virus and then infecting other people.
He claimed that the filthy circumstances of factories and meat farms, as well as the vast industrial agriculture, “are petri dishes for the evolution of viruses.”
Quammen added, “These mass industrial scale animal husbandry operations are dangerous for everybody, and not just the people who buy their poultry or their pork from those operations.”
“It’s not just the fact that we have 8billion humans on this planet. It’s the fact that we have 8billion humans and a large portion of those humans live in circumstances that allow them to buy a lot of animal protein.”
According to Mr. Quammen, people are mostly responsible for either causing or averting the next epidemic, regardless of its origin.
Viral outbreaks are caused by a number of factors, including unhygienic living circumstances, overpopulation, excessive consumption, and climate change.
Mr Quammen said, “It’s not just sheer numbers of the human population that’s causing the problem. It’s population size multiplied by consumption.”
“And that’s causing two things. It’s causing disruption of wild ecosystems where a lot of these viruses live in wild animals minding their own business, and as we disrupt those ecosystems we give those viruses the opportunity to get into us to spill into humans.”
“And that’s an opportunity that is like winning the sweepstakes for the [viruses] because it gives them an extremely successful global virus.”
‘Factory scale’ production of animals for human food is another significant risk factor, according to Mr. Quammen.
“We are also producing animal protein in domestic animals on a factory scale, with high concentrations of animals, hundreds of thousands of pigs, millions of chickens, crowded together on one farm or in one building,” he explained.
Mr. Quammen emphasized that stricter climate change measures and an emphasis on a less meat-heavy diet might make a significant impact in preventing a pandemic.
“Think twice about how much animal protein you buy and where you buy it,” he said.
Mr Quammen also advised people “think twice about having children and think twice about how many children you have and how much you add to the human population on this planet.”
