Welcome to the ‘Pandemicene’: is Australia ready for the next pandemic?

Frontline healthcare worker with Covid patient at St Vincent's hospital in Sydney. ‘We have learned a lot but the lessons rapidly get forgotten.’ Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

When studying disease outbreaks, think like a microbe.

That’s the lesson that was drummed into Prof Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, when she was undergoing her scientific training, and she’s never forgotten it.