Scientific literacy key to preventing pandemic repeat

While the World Science Festival will have a hybrid model of both in-person and virtual panels and information sessions this year, the main festival in New York in June has been postponed for the second year in a row, although organisers are planning several virtual events.

Professor Greene said the pandemic had been both humbling for scientists, and empowering.

He said the ability to have a viable vaccine being give to people around the world was “utterly astounding” and a testament to the ingenuity of scientists.

However, the fact that more had not been done to plan for such a global disaster showed that science needed to do more to get policymakers to listen.

“There have been people who for decades have been warning that this is…