Pandemics are an issue, but at least take a full sample when judging WHO's response. SARS would have been horrific, but it was stopped by human intervention, not by any major problem with its virulence.
It can be said that we're always due for some extinction event. In the past they have even coincided, which may be why they were so devastating. But in probability, independent events do not affect those that follow: the occurrence of an extremely rare event does not exclude the possibility of it occurring again soon after. Likewise, an unusually long gap between such events does not increase the likelihood of it happening. Why the human mind struggles to grok this most basic of mathematical facts continues to astound me.
That's not to say that one won't happen soon, but it doesn't say it will either. The chances remain the same. I'm trying to remember it now, but you can calculate how long a period you need for the odds of some event (with its own odds of occurring in any given instance) to occur with that time frame to rise to 50%.
Though some events are not independent. The odds of a climactic upheaval as a result of the continents reforming into a single supercontinent (as happened at the end of the Permian) are zero right now, but will rise sharply by the time the Pacific has closed.
__________________
| (• ◡•)| (❍ᴥ❍ʋ)
|