Fortune: Preparing for ‘Disease X,’ even deadlier than covid, to be discussed at World Economic Forum in Davos

World 15 January, 2024 12:00

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum—to be held in Davos, Switzerland, next week—is on more radars than usual this year, thanks to the name of one of the sessions: “Preparing for Disease X,” Fortune reported.

“Disease X,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO), “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease.”

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, will speak at the event, in addition to Michel Demare, chair of the board of AstraZeneca, Brazil Minister of Health Nisia Trindade Lima, and Jamil Edmond Anderlini, editor in chief of Politico Europe, among others.

The run-of-the-mill pandemic preparation session was blown out of proportion late this week, leading to the phrase “Disease X” trending on both Twitter and Google at times. Right-wing social media accounts slammed the session, charging that world leaders would convene to discuss plans to impose vaccine mandates, restrict free speech, and even plan pandemics themselves.

On Thursday night, former Trump-era Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department and Fox News analyst Monica Crowley tweeted a baseless warning that “unelected globalists at the World Elected Forum will hold a panel on a future pandemic 20x deadlier than COVID.”

“Just in time for the election, a new contagion to allow them to implement a new WHO treaty, lock down again, restrict free speech and destroy more freedoms,” she wrote. “Sound far-fetched? So did what happened in 2020.”

Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells Fortune that those in the medical and public health professions “have always conducted thought experiments and tabletop exercises to prepare for pandemics.”

“To arbitrarily suggest these exercises and meetings are part of some kind of conspiracy evades the actual purpose they serve and the problems on which they are trying to gain traction, all for the nihilistic purpose of compromising pandemic preparedness and brazen pandering,” he added.

Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, told Fortune that it would be “irresponsible” for world leaders not to meet at the forum.

“There have been multiple such events in recorded history, and the recent coronavirus pandemic taught us that rapid response can save millions of lives,” he said. “Coordination of public health response is not conspiracy, it’s simply responsible planning.”