There was about 100 years between the Spanish Flu and COVID-19. Should we expect the next global pandemic in less than 100 years?
I think this is an important question because it influences what governments should do about vaccine property rights - waiving them makes more sense if we expect pandemics to become less likely since the longer it's been, the smaller effect the profitability of COVID vaccines should have on the decisions of pharma companies and the more time we should have to come up with other ways of incentivisng vaccine development.
It seems like humans doing stuff that's generally bad for the environment, development in LMICs, urbanisation, more globalisation and more risky lab experiments could raise the probablity of a pandemic, but international agreements following COVID-19 for pandemic prevention, better policy on the environment and the effect of alternative proteins on animal agriculture could make pandemics less likely.
Possibly relevant prior question.