A pandemic risk model for viruses

Different viruses such as influenza viruses, HIV, or coronaviruses exhibit characteristic traits, i.e. typical fitness landscapes and typical rates of movement within those landscapes via mutation and recombination. Those traits determine how well a virus can adapt to new environments. Epidemics and pandemics usually result from an animal virus adapting to human hosts, which allows the viral disease to spread in a susceptible human population. We investigate the pandemic risk for different viral types, using an analytical model. A viral type in our model is characterized by a typical distribution of fitness. Randomly created viral variants from that distribution enter the human population and their fitness, which influences the infection rate, determines the probability of spreading successfully. With the help of our model, we hope to gain mechanistic insights into the fundamental traits of viruses that interact with the human population and how those influence the likelihood that a new viral strain will develop into a pandemic.