Pandemics are the biggest risk to civilization---outweigh and turn other impacts

Reducing global catastrophic risks (GCRs) is one of our top priorities at the Open Philanthropy Project. * We have a particular interest in addressing GCRs from biological sources—or global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs), to use the term coined by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. As we build our new biosecurity and pandemic preparedness (BPP) program, we're putting a lot of thought into our definition of GCBRs and how to make high-impact investments that reduce these risks. We are delighted that the Center for Health Security has initiated this discussion, and we're pleased to have the opportunity to share our thoughts on the topic.

In establishing GCRs as one of our program areas and biosecurity and pandemic preparedness as one of our specific focuses, the Open Philanthropy Project systematically assessed a wide range of potential GCR sources—including climate change, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, asteroids, and volcanos.1 We came to the conclusion that pandemics are among the most important, tractable, and neglected potential causes of such a catastrophic event.†

By our working definition, a GCR is something that could permanently alter the trajectory of human civilization in a way that would undermine its long-term potential or, in the most extreme case, threaten its survival. This prompts the question: How severe would a pandemic need to be to create such a catastrophic outcome? Some of my colleagues have suggested that an event on the order of at least 100 million fatalities, and probably much higher, would be necessary. This argument is informed in part by the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which caused an estimated 50-100 million fatalities. While it had a devastating impact in terms of loss of life, the pandemic did not appear to alter the long-term trajectory of human civilization. This suggests that a more severe pandemic may be necessary to destabilize civilization over longer time scales.2

However, these types of estimates are highly uncertain, and they raise challenging questions about the relationship between fatality levels and the resulting second-, third- and higher-order effects that could undermine systems that are necessary to support civilization. For example, we think it is likely that once fatalities got to a certain level, we could expect to see a variety of knock-on effects, including collapsing financial systems, collapsing healthcare systems, disrupted global supply chains, food and water shortages, power disruptions, or military conflict. How would these cascading system failures play out, and how would they influence the severity of pandemic outcomes? In addition to these considerations, as the Center for Health Security essay astutely points out, a high-fatality event may not be necessary to cause a GCBR. Alternative pathways, such as an organism or molecule that causes widespread negative effects on fertility, could also plausibly lead to such an outcome.

Another important open question is: What is the most likely source of a GCBR? Our intuition is that, in the longer term, engineered pathogens—dispersed through a deliberate attack or accidental release—pose the greatest potential risk for this type of event. However, we don't have enough evidence to dismiss the possibility of a GCBR from a natural outbreak. If we saw convincing evidence that countered our intuition, it could lead us to change our working assumptions on this point.