The virus behind Covid-19 – SARS-CoV-2 – originally emerged from an animal species, although exactly which species was still being investigated. In any case, the catastrophe has prompted many people to ask whether we'll be able to catch and stop the next potential pandemic virus. What's called "zoonotic risk prediction" involved trying to determine which virus families and host groups were most likely to carry potential zoonotic or pandemic viruses. "This is changing the make-up of virus data in that the more viruses we find, a smaller proportion of them seem to cause disease." As well, existing data was highly biased towards those viruses that most infected humans, agricultural animals, or which were already known to be zoonotic.

Source: New Zealand Herald April 22, 2021 04:30 UTC