Future generations may not forgive the World Health Organization’s member nations, should they fail to agree on a pandemic treaty, the organization’s chief said Saturday at the Warwick Economic Summit, calling the agreement “mission critical for humanity.”

Despite lessons that should have been learned during COVID-19, the world is unprepared for the next pandemic, be it an influenza virus, another coronavirus, or “Disease X”—a term the organization has used since 2018 to refer to a yet-unknown pandemic pathogen, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, speaking virtually from Geneva at the summit, held in Coventry, England.