The dataset in reference 6 covers pandemics with fatalities above 1,000 and likely contains most, if not all, such pandemics.

True: the paper cited as reference 6 explicitly defines its dataset as pandemics with more than 1,000 fatalities, and comparison with other historical pandemic compilations or epidemiological histories shows that it includes most or all known pandemics meeting that threshold. Mostly true: the definition matches, with a slightly different wording or threshold, and the coverage is broad with only a few known omissions. Mixed: the definition matches, but notable known pandemics above the threshold are missing, so 'most' is doubtful; or the coverage is good but the definition differs materially. Mostly false: the dataset's definition differs materially from 'pandemics with more than 1K fatalities', or many qualifying pandemics are missing. False: the reference does not define its dataset this way and leaves out a large share of the qualifying pandemics.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Tail Risk of Contagious Diseases arXiv (preprint by Cirillo and Taleb) · 18 April 2020 Own record

   “The data are available in Table 1, together with their sources, and only refer to events with more than 1K estimated victims, for a total of 72 observations.”

2. E2 Scientific comment on “Tail risk of contagious diseases” arXiv (independent scientific comment) · 31 January 2026

   “Using the figures from 72 epidemics, from the plague of Athens (429 BC) to the COVID-19 (2019-2020), they claim that the resulting fatality distribution is”

3. E3 What were the death tolls from pandemics in history? Our World in Data · 7 December 2023

   “Although there is no universally accepted definition of a pandemic1, diseases called pandemics share several characteristics.”

4. E4 Tail Risk of Contagious Diseases arXiv (authors include Nassim Nicholas Taleb) · 18 April 2020 Own record

   “The data are available in Table 1, together with their sources, and only refer to events with more than 1K estimated victims, for a total of 72 observations.”

5. E5 Tail Risk of Contagious Diseases arXiv (authors include Nassim Nicholas Taleb) · 18 April 2020 Own record

   “But it also true that our data set is likely to be incomplete, not containing all epidemics and pandemics with more than 1K victims, or that some of the events we have collected are too biased to be reliable and should be discarded anyway.”

6. E6 What were the death tolls from pandemics in history? Our World in Data · 7 December 2023

   “The result is that we tend to underestimate the frequency and severity of pandemics in history.”

7. E7 Gray Rhinos, Black Swans and Dragon Kings: Of Wars and Pandemics Niall Ferguson (slide presentation; Milbank Family Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford), hosted by the Graduate Institute, Geneva

   “Cirillo and Taleb (2020), with amended figures in red”

8. E8 Gray Rhinos, Black Swans and Dragon Kings: Of Wars and Pandemics Niall Ferguson (slide presentation; Milbank Family Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford), hosted by the Graduate Institute, Geneva

   “How to recognize a really big pandemic. 20 pandemics have killed >0.05% of world population; 7>1%; 2>30%”

9. E9 COVID-19 Compared to Other Pandemic Diseases PubMed Central (NCBI), journal not shown in fetched text · 31 July 2020

   “Interestingly, there is a significant discordance in the inclusion or the exclusion of specific infectious diseases causing pandemics.”

10. E10 Longer-run Economic Consequences of Pandemics NBER Working Paper 26934 (Jordà, Singh, Taylor) · April 2020

    “We study rates of return on assets using a dataset stretching back to the 14th century, focusing on 15 major pandemics where more than 100,000 people died.”

The cited paper itself (E1/E4) says its data "only refer to events with more than 1K estimated victims," 72 observations in all, so the threshold part of the claim matches. The same paper also says its dataset "is likely to be incomplete, not containing all epidemics and pandemics with more than 1K victims" (E5). None of the evidence compares the dataset with other historical compilations to show whether it covers most qualifying pandemics. E2, E7 and E10 list no specific omissions from the dataset, and E6 and E9 only make general points that historical records are uncertain, so the coverage criterion cannot be settled.