/ Jerry Saliki is the director of the Oklahoma Animal Disease Diagnostic Center in Stillwater, OK. His team stepped up to expand testing capacity at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, animal disease labs across the country stepped up to expand testing capacity, and they could play a role in preventing the next pandemic. Spillover events (animal diseases that jump to humans) happen often, according to Jonna Mazet, a professor of epidemiology and disease ecology at the University of California - Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Most novel diseases and emerging infections that jump from one species to another don’t cause big problems, she says. In other cases, it can be bad.