Will the announced influenza pandemic really happen?

TL;DR

This paper uses simple probabilistic models to estimate the likelihood and timing of an influenza pandemic, suggesting it is more probable but possibly delayed compared to common expectations.

Contribution

It introduces two straightforward probability models to assess the timing and likelihood of influenza pandemics, providing new insights into their expected occurrence.

Findings

High probability of pandemic occurrence within 150 years

Significant chance of no pandemic over 60 years

Pandemics may happen later than commonly expected

Abstract

We propose two simple probability models to compute the probability of an influenza pandemic. Under a random walk model the probability that all pandemics between times 0 and 300 occur by time 150 is 1/2. Under a Poisson model with mean inter arrival time of 30 years the probability that no pandemic occurs during at least 60 years is 14%. These probabilities are much higher than generally perceived. So yes the next influenza pandemic will happen but maybe much later than generally thought.