ABSTRACT
Pandemic preparedness is characterised by high uncertainty, with policymakers and practitioners mitigating against threats that are novel. Despite the anticipated devastating effects that a pandemic could unleash, pandemic risk remains largely underspecified and unspecifiable. A number of pathogens could trigger the outbreak – which could be due to natural processes or to intentional release of a biological agent. The pathogen cannot be identified in advance and could be entirely new. Diseases with pandemic potential may have different avenues of transmission and may produce different symptoms. Different risk groups would be most affected. Therefore, measures to mitigate a pandemic outbreak would also need to be fluid, quick to deploy and easy to recalibrate to the appropriate scale. Policymakers and responders are increasingly deploying the tools of modelling and simulation to inform decision-making in near to real-time. The plans to mitigate pandemic risk are heavily relying on simulations and modelling and, as we discuss in the chapter, this raises more questions than it purports to answer.
