Although some say COVID-19 is a black swan event, it really is not. Pandemics have occurred in the recent as well as the remote past.

A clearly articulated description of pandemic risk can be found in the World Economic Forum’s, The Global Risks Report 2019. â€Å"The spread of infectious disease‒ was among the top 10 risks listed, based on impact.

There are estimates of the cost of a pandemic in one of the special chapters in the report, though these may look small compared with what COVID-19 might actually cost.

In the The Global Risk Report for 2020, â€Å"infectious diseases‒ is again among the top 10 risks.

That report describes the readiness of countries to deal with epidemic or pandemic and cites a Nuclear Threat Initiative study that concluded that â€Å"no country is fully prepared to handle an epidemic or pandemic.‒