[ramesh31]

What worries me more is the next time, when there's multiple different viruses and the death rate is much higher.

Given that there are two possible scenarios for the origin of COVID; natural transmission or lab origin, I find the former to be a far more terrifying prospect. If it were a lab outbreak, that's a protocol problem that can be addressed to prevent it in the future. If it was natural transmission, why hasn't this happened before? Why isn't it happening again right now? Why isn't there 10 different viruses at once, that are much more deadly? What happens when that occurs? If this happened naturally, it will happen again. And I just pray that we are prepared.

[immibis]

It has happened plenty of times. HIV, for one? But such transmission is quite rare and only seems to occur every few decades.

That's for "interesting" viruses, by the way. "Boring" viruses probably get transmitted all the time. Most things are boring.