Last year, the SARS-CoV-2 virus made its way into the world, causing death and mayhem that brought the world to an unparalleled halt.

Hundreds of millions of individuals were compelled to isolate during the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the entire world to a halt and putting a strain on economic growth and progress.

And if that isn’t enough to scare you, experts are warning of another deadly outbreak that could strike as early as 2078.

Covid-scale pandemics, according to new research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, may be significantly more common than previously imagined.

Coronavirus has infected more than 211.7 million individuals and claimed the lives of more than 4.43 million as of August 23, making it the deadliest viral outbreak of the twenty-first century.

But, according to statistical analysis of historical records spanning the last 400 years, lethal outbreaks of new diseases are not at all uncommon.

There have been three pendemics of coronavirus-related infections in this century alone, with the SARS and MERS viruses occurring in 2002 and 2012, respectively.

According to the findings of the study, which was headed by academics from the University of Padua in Italy and the University of Duke in the United States, lethal diseases are growing more common and the next one might hit in less than 60 years.

The scientists evaluated the likelihood of a pandemic on the scale of the Covid virus arising.

They discovered that someone born in the year 2000 had a 38 percent probability of experiencing a pandemic by the time they reach adulthood.

Furthermore, the likelihood of a pandemic of similar magnitude emerging in a year is approximately two percent – a figure that the experts believe is increasing.

“The most important takeaway is that large pandemics like COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu are relatively likely,” said William Pan, the study’s lead author and associate professor of global environmental health at Duke.

Ahead of the emergence of Covid, the Spanish Flu was the deadliest pandemic to have ever swept the world.

Arriving in 1918 as a result of World War I, the devastating influenza is thought to have claimed the lives of upwards of 30 million people by the year 1920.

Over the study period, the likelihood of a similar pandemic erupting fluctuated between 0.3 and 1.9 percent per year.

In other words, it is statistically likely that another illness of a similar size would recur within the next 400 years.

The researchers anticipate that the chance of another outbreak will triple in the future decades based on the rate at which new infections have attacked human populations.

And the researchers warn that within the next 12,000 years, a disease powerful enough to wipe out the human population is likely to strike.

The findings do not imply that large-scale diseases will strike the earth in predictable patterns.

Rather than that, the scientists emphasized the statistical possibility of pandemics occurring within a year within the time period analyzed.

Gabriel Katul, one of the study’s co-authors, said:

“When a 100-year flood occurs today, one may erroneously presume that one can afford to wait another 100 years before experiencing another such event.

“This impression is false. One can get another 100-year flood the next year.”

The experts have been unable to pinpoint the reason for the increasing frequency of these outbreaks.

Rapid population increase and habitat damage caused by urban sprawl and agribusiness are most likely to blame.

Dr Pan said: “This points to the importance of early response to disease outbreaks and building capacity for pandemic surveillance at the local and global scales, as well as for setting a research agenda for understanding why large outbreaks are becoming more common.”

Scientists have previously warned that meat eating is fueling fatal outbreaks such as COVID-19.

According to a paper published by scientists at South Africa’s University of the Free State (UFS), Covid is merely a “dress rehearsal” for worse outbreaks to come.

SARS-CoV-2 is suspected to have been contracted from an animal source in Wuhan City, China, most likely via an infected bat.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic infections, which means they can infect both humans and animals.

Scientists have detected only seven human coronaviruses yet, despite the fact that many more are presumably lurking in the wild.

Human coronaviruses were discovered in the mid-1960s, with the 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1 viruses causing the majority of human infections.

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