ISARIC and Surviving Sepsis Campaign. The following individuals contributed to or reviewed the current version. Confidentiality and declarations of interest were collected and reviewed. The methodology was reviewed with a representative of the WHO Guideline Review Committee. WHO: Janet V Diaz (Lead), April Baller, William Fischer (consultant), Tom Fletcher (consultant), Mercedes Bonet Semenas, Anshu Banerjee, Jane Cunningham, Meg Doherty, Paul Nathan Ford, Laurence Grummer-Strawn, Olufemi Oladapo, Lisa Rogers, Nigel Rollins, Maria Pura Solon, Marco Vitoria, Prinzo Weise, Wilson Were, Caron Kim, Anna Thorson, Maurice Bucagu, Anayda Portela, Yuka Sumi, Howard Sobel, Maria Van Kerkhove. UNICEF: Maya Arii, Joseph Senesie, Diane Holland. Non-WHO experts: Neill Adhikari, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and University of Toronto; Yaseen Arabi, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Saudi Arabia; Bin Cao, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Jake Dunning, Public Health England, UK; Rob Fowler, University of Toronto, Canada; Charles David Gomersall, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; David Hui, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; Yae-Jean Kim, Sungkyunkwan University, Samsung Medical Center, Republic of Korea; Norio Ohmagari, WHO Collaborating Centre for Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Emerging Infectious Diseases, National Center for Global Health and Medicine Hospital Toyama, Tokyo, Japan; Yinzhong Shen, Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; Tim Uyeki, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA; Vu Quoc Dat, Hanoi Medical University, Viet Nam; Niranjan Kissoon, UBC & BC Children’s Hospital Professor in Critical Care, Vancouver Canada; Joāo Paulo Souza, Professor Titular de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil; Pisake Lumbiganon, Director WHO Collaborating Centre for Research Synthesis in Reproductive Health Faculty of Medicine Khon Kaen University Khon Kaen, Thailand; Lucille Blumberg, National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), South Africa; Arthur Kwizera, Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Makerere University Kampala, Uganda. Special thanks to the team that contributed to the writing of this document: Caroline Quach-Thanh, University of Montréal, Canada; Patrice Savard, l’Université de Montréal, Canada; Jesse Papenburg, McGill University, Canada; Guillaume Poliquin, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada; Samira Mubareka, Sunnybrook Hospital, Canada; Srinivas Murthy, University of British Columbia, Canada; Marianna Offner, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada; Tracie Jones, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Sarah Forgie, Stollery Children’s Hospital, Canada; Susy Hota, University of Toronto, Canada; Gerald Evans, Queens University, Canada; Guillaume Emeriaud, CHU Sainte-Justine l’Université de Montréal, Canada; Perry Gray, University of Manitoba, Canada; Todd Hatchette, Dalhousie University, Canada; Jim Strong, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada; Titus Yeung, Vancouver General Hospital, Canada. Special thanks also go to the WHO COVID-19 IPC Global Expert Panel for their input. © World Health Organization 2020. All rights reserved. This document may not be reviewed, abstracted, quoted, reproduced, transmitted, d In 2006, the Global Risks Report sounded the alarm on pandemics and other health-related risks. That year, the report warned that a “lethal flu, its spread facilitated by global travel patterns and uncontained by insufficient warning mechanisms, would present an acute threat.” Impacts would include “severe impairment of travel, tourism and other service industries, as well as manufacturing and retail supply chains” while “global trade, investor risk appetites and consumption demand” could see longer-term harms. A year later, the report presented a pandemic scenario that illustrated, among other effects, the amplifying role of “infodemics” in exacerbating the core risk. Subsequent editions have stressed the need for global collaboration in the face of antimicrobial resistance (8th edition, 2013), the Ebola crisis (11th edition, 2016), biological threats (14th edition, 2019), and overstretched health systems (15th edition, 2020), among other topics. In 2020, the risk of a global pandemic became reality. As governments, businesses and societies survey the damage inflicted over the last year, strengthening strategic foresight is now more important than ever. With the world more attuned to risk, there is an opportunity to leverage attention and find more effective ways to identify and communicate risk to decision-makers. It is in this context that we publish the 16th edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report. Our analysis centres on the risks and consequences of widening inequalities and societal fragmentation. In some cases, disparities in health outcomes, technology, or workforce opportunities are the direct result of the dynamics the pandemic created. In others, alreadypresent societal divisions have widened, straining weak safety nets and economic structures beyond capacity. Whether the gaps can be narrowed will depend on the actions taken in the wake of COVID-19 to rebuild with a view