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C. Brandon Ogbunu

Coronavirus crisis volunteer Rhiannon Navin greets local residents arriving to a food distribution center at the WestCop community center on March 18, 2020 in New Rochelle, New York. New Rochelle has been a hot spot for the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Now is the time for a COVID-19 synthesis

C. Brandon Ogbunu
FILE - In this file photo daetd Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014, a medical worker sprays people being discharged from the Island Clinic Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia. Bulldozers on Wednesday April. 5, 2017 cleared the remains of a once busy Ebola treatment unit in Liberia, as health care workers, officials and some who were treated there gathered to mark the center's last day and official decommissioning. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, FILE) (AP)

Why it’s so difficult for scientists to predict the next outbreak of a dangerous disease

C. Brandon Ogbunu, Randall Harp, Samuel V. Scarpino