The rise of zoonotic infections should not be surprising at all given the rate of deforestation and general disregard for nature.
Original SARS, Bird Flu part 1, MERS, Swine Flu (arguably an actual pandemic), Bird Flu part 2, Covid.
No one should be surprised that there's a new possible pandemic 3 years after Covid.
If this ends up being another actual pandemic - that would be surprising.
Feb 1992 - a Soviet defector revealed to Western intelligence that he had overseen an extensive, illegal programme to develop smallpox into a highly effective biological weapon:
> Ken Alibek believes that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, unemployed or badly-paid scientists are likely to have sold samples of smallpox clandestinely and gone to work in rogue states engaged in illicit biological weapons development.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/pox_weapon_0...
June 1998 - The WHO recommends that all smallpox samples should be destroyed https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199808203390811
Feb 2002 - WHO says that Russia and US can keep their smallpox samples https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2002/02/wide-ran...
Nov 2002 - CIA claims that Russia, France, Iraq and North Korea have "secret" stashes of small pox (erm you already know Russia has them, that's not a secret) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2002/11/cia-beli...
Sep 2019 - Explosion and fire break out at Russian lab known for housing deadly smallpox virus https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/17/health/russia-lab-explosion-s... https://www.livescience.com/russia-lab-stores-smallpox-explo...