Pandemic Preparedness Gap
The world remains structurally unprepared for the next respiratory pandemic.
Severity score
62.2
Severe · default weighting
Trajectory
Worsening
What this is
Surveillance networks, surge manufacturing capacity, and equitable distribution agreements remain weak or unfunded five years after COVID-19. Zoonotic spillover risk is rising with land use change and intensive livestock production, while political appetite for preparedness spending has fallen sharply.
Score breakdown
Loss of life
40Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.
Lives negatively impacted
90People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.
Financial cost
88Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.
Environmental impact
10Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.
Trajectory
86Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.