While we can’t re-write history or change the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, there might a way to help stop future pandemics – SpillOver, a new web application developed by infectious disease scientists at the University of California Davis, hopes to do just that.
The app is an open-source risk assessment tool that directly compares hundreds of virus, host and environmental risk factors to identify viruses with the highest risk of zoonotic spillover, which is when pathogens are transmitted from a vertebrate animal (like a bat) to a human, and the most pandemic potential.