Today’s AI Could Make Pandemics 5 Times More Likely, Experts Predict

AI may make human-caused pandemics 5× more likely than last year, experts warn in a study shared exclusively with TIME. Read More

WHO director calls for world pandemic treaty to prepare for Disease X - Fox News

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on countries to sign the health organization’s pandemic treaty so the world can prepare for a placeholder virus called “Disease X." ... Read More

Opinion | The World Needs to Prepare for the Next Pandemic - The New York Times

The world needs to be prepared for the next Disease X, something capable of causing global catastrophic risks. Here’s what it would take to collect all we learned from Covid and to transform our ... Read More

World leaders are gathering to discuss Disease X. Here's what to know about the hypothetical pandemic. - CBS News

World leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday to discuss Disease X, a hypothetical virus 20 times deadlier than COVID-19. Read More

Cheer Up! The World Is Better Off Than You Think. - The New York Times

Enough with the doom and gloom! Our planet may be in better shape than you think. Human beings have a cognitive bias toward bad news (keeping us alert and alive), and we journalists reflect that ... Read More

How the pandemic changed the world for the worse -- and the better : Goats and Soda - NPR

Five years after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, there has been progress — and backsliding in the way the world responds to infectious disease. Read More

WHO adopts a ‘pandemic agreement’ after the chaos of COVID

Dr. Esperance Luvindao, Namibia’s health minister and the chair of a committee that paved the way for Tuesday’s adoption, said that the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted huge costs “on lives ... Read More

COVID-19 Shows Why the World Needs a Pandemic Agreement

T oday marks four years since I said the global outbreak of COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic.. My decision to use the “p-word” was not one I took lightly. Pandemic is a powerful ... Read More

15 Lessons Scientists Learned About Us When the World Stood Still - The New York Times

The pandemic gave researchers a rare opportunity to study human behavior. Their work offers lessons about loneliness, remote work, high heels and more. By Claire Cain Miller and Irineo Cabreros ... Read More

Pandemic left much of the world on lower human development trajectory

Dozens of poor nations have yet to regain their pre-pandemic levels of overall well-being, amid signs that the pandemic may have permanently depressed the world’s development trajectory ... Read More

A Bird Flu Pandemic Would Be One of the Most Foreseeable Catastrophes in History - The New York Times

We might be fine. Viruses don’t always manage to adapt to new species, despite all the opportunities. But if there is a bird flu pandemic soon, it will be among the most foreseeable catastrophes ... Read More

As the Pandemic Deepened, Americans Kept Drinking More

White Americans were most likely to be heavy drinkers among racial and ethnic groups, with 7.34 percent reporting heavy drinking, up from 5.69 percent in 2018 and 7.11 percent in 2020. Read More