Improving Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons from COVID-19

Improving Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons from COVID-19.  Council on Foreign Relations. Thomas J. Bollyky and Stewart M. Patrick. October 2020.

The United States and the world were caught unprepared by the COVID-19 pandemic despite decades of warnings of the threat of global pandemics and years of international planning. The failure to adequately fund and execute these plans has exacted a heavy human and economic price. Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost, and the global economy is in the midst of a painful contraction. The crisis—the greatest international public health emergency in more than a century—is not over. It is not too early, however, to begin distilling lessons from this painful experience so that the United States and the world are better positioned to cope with potential future waves of the current pandemic and to avoid disaster when the next one strikes, which it surely will. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 158 pages].

Global Health and Security: Threats and Opportunities

Global Health and Security: Threats and Opportunities. RAND Corporation. Kathryn E. Bouskill, Elta Smith. December 13, 2019.

The spread of infectious disease can be deadlier than world wars — the Spanish flu, for instance, killed millions more people than World War I, one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. Yet present threats to public health, though less overt, could be considered more insidious than a deadly pandemic. In this Perspective, the authors review the current scope and operation of global health security, identify emerging threats, and assess how adequately current visions of global health security account for these threats. The authors identify two main threats to global health security: slow-burn problems — whose long-term effects are underestimated, potentially causing them to receive insufficient attention until it is too late to reverse the damage — and emerging technologies that have beneficial uses but that also can be used as weapons. The authors propose that a broader definition of global health security should be considered — one that would extend well beyond the threats of pandemics and bioweapons of mass destruction. They also maintain that global health security requires greater systematic focus on the complex interlinkages among human physical and mental health, animal health, and the environment.

Policymakers will face the challenge of balancing agility and rapid decisionmaking during times of crisis with a holistic scope that encompasses both imminent and future threats. The authors recommend that infectious disease remain a priority of global health security and that efforts to increase collaboration and trust among international leaders be fostered. In addition, the authors argue that global health security must not come at the expense of efforts to advance global public health, well-being, and human rights. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 27 pages].