“What” indeed!
I’m an epidemiologist (and hopefully a competent one), and I agree that we are not anywhere close to adequately prepared for a bad pandemic (where H1N1 was a not-so-bad pandemic, and H5N1 would probably be a bad pandemic). However, I’ve participated in several foresight and pandemic preparedness exercises that tried to put odds on pandemics with various profiles (mortality, infectiousness, etc.), and I have never observed a consensus anywhere close to this strong.
If anyone could direct me to a publication, report, group, or anything that supports the claims quoted in the parent and/or give the reasoning that lead to it, then I am in need of a massive update and would like to know immediately!
No expert in this area voice any doubt that such an outbreak will occur.
This is not only false, but epistemically absurd.
Done did the survey!