What the US can do to prepare for the next pandemic

This appeared in The Millennial Source

According to experts, it isn’t a matter of if another pandemic will occur, but when.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet. Even with vaccination rates accelerating, the United States is still months away from approaching herd immunity, even if enough people opt to get vaccinated. Some positive coronavirus-related news in recent weeks, though, has created the general impression that the end is in sight.

Researchers and epidemiologists have already been anticipating the next pandemic, as well as ones bound to come after that. That is because, according to these experts, it isn’t a matter of if another pandemic will occur, but when.

Deforestation and increasing globalization has all but ensured that viruses that originate in animals and then leap to humans — such as SARS-CoV-2 — are far more common. Multiple such viruses are already in circulation in the world.

Saydi Akgul, a public health professional who works in the nonprofit sector, explained to TMS why we should expect more diseases like coronavirus in the future.

“It is suspected by environmental health specialists that as we continue to invade ecosystems,” Akgul says, “the onset of zoonotic [jumping from animals to humans] and…