12 Must-Have Items to Buy for a Flu Pandemic Amanda Gardner Replay Video What to buy for a flu pandemic With the Covid-19 pandemic still ongoing, it's hard to even contemplate the possibility of another type of pandemic. In fact, many experts would have predicted an influenza virus as the more likely cause of a pandemic—the world-wide outbreak of a new illness—than a new coronavirus, which is what causes Covid-19. Typically, flu A and B are the two main types that can infect humans (type C only causes mild illness and type D mostly affects animals). For a flu pandemic to occur, there needs to be a global outbreak of a new influenza A virus in people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).