"There was a global pandemic just ninety-five years ago [in 1918]—the Spanish flu pandemic, which is now estimated to have killed up to 100 million people. And that’s before one of our more questionable innovations—budget airlines—were invented. The combination of millions of people traveling around the world every day, plus millions more people living in extremely close proximity to pigs and poultry—often in the same room, making a new virus jumping the species barrier more likely—means we are increasing, significantly, the probability of a new global pandemic. So no wonder then that epidemiologists increasingly agree that a new global pandemic is now a matter of “when” not “if.”"