Will the WHO announce a non-H5N1 pandemic before 2040?

Prediction market on metaculus. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation characterised COVID-19 a pandemic. This was the first time such an announcement took place after the H1N1 influenza characterisation on June 11, 2009. [Experts warn](https://www.cgdev.org/blog/the-next-pandemic-could-come-soon-and-be-deadlier) that such an event will likely be repeated in the not too distant future: Using their model, based on simulated epidemic and pandemic catalogs, the Metabiota team also estimated the probability of another event as damaging as COVID-19. Metabiota’s approach is significant, Dean Jamison emphasized, because it applies techniques from both epidemiological and catastrophe modeling to estimate the expected impact of future outbreaks, and assesses long-term pandemic risk in a way that previous epidemiological literature did not. ‎ Their results are worrying and put risk much higher than many seem to expect. They estimate the annual probability of a pandemic on the scale of COVID-19 in any given year to be between 2.5-3.3 percent, which means a 47-57 percent chance of another global pandemic as deadly as COVID in the next 25 years. These numbers illustrate the importance of preparing immediately for future outbreaks.

Resolves: 1/1/2040.