I'd guess someone with the right skills could cook up a new human disease for about $10K. I might be off by a factor of ten (in either direction).
I imagine getting the balance of R value and virulence just right would be difficult; I didn't include that in my estimate.
Pandemics come along every hundred years or so, so this will happen again unless we hurry up and exterminate all mammals (humans included).
Alternatively, people could stop panicing. As pandemics go, Covid was extremely mild, and tools like contact tracing and mRNA vaccines will help us reduce the impact of the next one.
I imagine getting the balance of R value and virulence just right would be difficult; I didn't include that in my estimate.
Pandemics come along every hundred years or so, so this will happen again unless we hurry up and exterminate all mammals (humans included).
Alternatively, people could stop panicing. As pandemics go, Covid was extremely mild, and tools like contact tracing and mRNA vaccines will help us reduce the impact of the next one.