Michael Osterholm on the next pandemic, which he says will be worse

Chris Hewitt, The Minnesota Star Tribune

Any time Michael Osterholm needs inspiration to continue fighting for public health , he glances at a gift on his desk, a Christmas present from his two adult children.

“It’s an electronic picture frame and they keep putting in pictures of my five grandkids,” said Osterholm , an internationally renowned epidemiologist who leads the “Osterholm Update” podcast and founded the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “I sit at my desk and watch all these pictures go across the screen and I don’t need any more reason to do what I do than to say, ‘What kind of world are we leaving for those kids?’”

That’s the message of “The Big One,” written by Osterholm and frequent collaborator Mark Olshaker. The work