PurposeThis paper aims to consider if an initial driver of the cross-country global coronavirus pandemic was trade openness with China.Design/methodology/approachThe authors estimate simple, seemingly unrelated and zero-inflated count data specifications of a gravity model of trade between China and its trading partners, where the number of human coronavirus infections in a country is a function of the number of distinct good/services exported and imported from China.FindingsParameter estimates reveal that the number of early cross-country human coronavirus infections increased with respect to trade openness with China, as measured by the number of distinct Chinese exported and imported goods/services, and can account for approximately 24% of early infections among China's trading partners. The findings suggest that one of the costs of trade openness and globalization is that they can be a driver of cross-country human disease pandemics.Originality/valueThis inquiry constitutes a first approach at embedding the possible disease pandemic costs of free trade, trade openness and globalization within a trade gravity model.