Despite the harsh lessons of the Corona pandemic
The United States will not be prepared for the next pandemic
Public health authorities in America are required to rebuild trust with the public.
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Each state has adopted its own approach since the start of the health crisis.
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After the September 11 attacks, which killed 2,996 Americans, the United States sensed the gravity of the situation, and then identified the target as a country under attack.
Congress and the Executive branch established the 9/11 Commission;
The Department of Homeland Security was also created;
The position of Director of National Intelligence was created;
And the United States launched a long-running campaign that lasted for years, targeting the perpetrators of the crimes.
The security operation included several aspects, including tightening control at airports and embassies, and redoubling efforts to prevent another terrorist attack.
Now the country has suffered another serious attack, a pandemic that has killed nearly 400 Americans every day for two years, and more than a million Americans have died.
However, the nation is not doing what needs to be done.
The lessons of the pandemic are many and the threat is real, yet the preparations for the next time - the ambitious and actionable spirit of the United States - are almost entirely absent.
And pandemic preparedness—the action needed to turn lessons from the nation's response to the coronavirus into a reality—should be an urgent priority for the White House, Congress, and the American people.
Being prepared means having everything in its place the day before it is needed, and no one knows when it will be.
It is not enough to amend organizational charts and amend briefing papers.
Instead, what is needed is a sustainable and large-scale shift in how the United States deals with public health.
Public health refers to “what we do as a society collectively to ensure conditions in which people can be healthy,” according to the Institute of Medicine in a landmark report, 1988.
Our raw materials: scientific knowledge, innovation and wealth.
But we need better policies, programs and practices to regulate these assets;
Unless the country changes course, more crises will come, perhaps quickly.
Monkeypox, which is rarely spotted outside Africa, has spread in the United States from almost nothing, to more than 16,920 cases in just over three months, overwhelming public health systems and making it difficult to control.
While the polio virus, which was largely eradicated in the United States four decades ago, has been circulating for up to a year, the public alarm came when a patient in New York fell ill.
The first severe acute respiratory syndrome, or the so-called "SARS", caused the death of 774 people, and the case fatality rate was 10%.
As for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, the case fatality rate was 36%.
Neither of them showed a high susceptibility to human-to-human transmission.
real risks
However, Covid-19 has been found to be highly contagious, and has infected more than 500 million people worldwide.
And with a mortality rate of 1% or less, it still leads to a lot of deaths.
what happened after that?
And what if a new coronavirus combined some characteristics of previous viruses with transmissibility?
This is what most experts warn of, that the risks of another pandemic are real and severe.
The experience of "Covid-19" revealed the risks, and the response to the epidemic was very different between states and provinces.
In America, there has been a sharp disagreement between the warring camps over whether restrictions should be adopted or life should go on as normal, and whether to impose masks or vaccinations.
Disagreement between provinces over diagnostic tests, supplies and treatments has intensified.
And who can forget President Donald Trump's tweets, "Free Michigan!" attacking Democratic leaders who imposed pandemic restrictions.
Some communities sent their reports by fax.
Trump predicted that the virus would disappear and called treatments useless, and the White House blocked the traditional leadership roles of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Trump's willful deception has distorted one of the most important elements of an effective public health campaign: clear and transparent communications.
This led to a loss of public confidence.
Among the few things the Trump administration has achieved is Operation Warp Speed, a rapid vaccine development effort that shows that coordinated government efforts can make a difference. Every virus or bacteria has a genetic blueprint.
With advances in bioinformatics, scientists can use genetic sequencing to identify a variant, identify mutations, and plot potential spread among people.
And this scientific progress should be harnessed at the level of the United States - or even the world - to study and track diseases transmitted between humans, animals and plants.
Immediate warning
And we, in the United States, already rely on early warning systems to monitor hurricanes.
We rely on radars and satellites, which monitor ballistic missile threats.
So immediate warning is critical to intelligence gathering and financial markets.
But so far, early warning systems are in place for only a few aspects of diseases.
The country's public health authorities must rebuild trust.
In emergency situations, the public's trust is fragile, and it is very difficult to restore, later on.
In the United States, transparency, speed, and clarity have often been lacking during this pandemic, and online disinformation has further eroded public trust.
A concerted effort must be made to rebuild public trust, in the digital age.
However, the prospects for large-scale reform do not look good.
And partisan strife in the Capitol has hampered further funding to respond to the current pandemic, let alone prepare for the next.
Where is the willpower that arose after 9/11?
Where is the bipartisan consensus that existed during the Cold War?
It is clear that the political landscape has been clouded by epidemic fatigue and impending elections.
But the need for preparedness will not go away.
The shift in public health requires a fundamental change in thinking.
We should appreciate this endeavor to protect us, rather than continue to neglect it, and we have been warned.
400
Americans died, every day, from the epidemic.
What is needed is a sustainable, large-scale shift in how the United States deals with public health.
The lessons of the epidemic are many and the threat is real, yet preparations for the next time are almost completely absent.
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