Concerns about the prospect of a global pandemic have been triggered many times during the last two decades. These have been realised through the current COVID‐19 pandemic, due to a new coronavirus SARS‐CoV2, which has impacted almost every country on Earth. Here, we show how considering the pandemic through the lenses of the evolutionary ecology of pathogens can help better understand the root causes and devise solutions to prevent the emergence of future pandemics. We call for better integration of these approaches into transdisciplinary research and invite scientists working on the evolutionary ecology of pathogens to contribute to a more “solution‐oriented” agenda with practical applications, emulating similar movements in the field of economics in recent decades.

中文翻译：

---

COVID-19大流行是可以避免的吗？呼吁在病原体进化生态学中采取“以解决方案为导向”的方法，以防止未来爆发。

在过去的二十年中，对全球大流行前景的担忧已经引发了许多次。由于新的冠状病毒SARS-CoV2已影响到地球上几乎每个国家，因此通过当前的COVID-19大流行已经实现了这些目标。在这里，我们展示了如何从病原体的进化生态学的角度来考虑大流行，如何有助于更好地了解根本原因并设计解决方案，以防止未来大流行的出现。我们呼吁将这些方法更好地整合到跨学科研究中，并邀请致力于病原体进化生态学的科学家为实际应用中的“解决方案导向”议程做出贡献，以模拟近几十年来经济学领域的类似动向。