Can America learn the lessons of this pandemic before the next?

On March 3, 2020, a soft-spoken physician named Dr. Matthew Hepburn took the stage on the TEDMED stage at the Westin Waterfront Hotel in Boston to give a long-planned talk about his life’s work: preventing pandemics. I was. His timing was right. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had just announced his 60 cases of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States that day, and a cruise ship full of infected passengers would soon be stranded off the coast of California.

Hepburn spent 23 years in the U.S. Army as an infectious disease specialist. Now, in front of a nervous audience of medical professionals who were bumping elbows instead of shaking hands, he identified three keys to fighting the pandemic. Advanced technology, global cooperation, and political will. “We can have the most effective pandemic response the world has ever seen,” he predicted. “Rather than divide, why not unite as a global community and fight this pandemic as a team?”

Before leaving the podium, Hepburn promised to never stop fighting to end the pandemic. In time, he worked 16-hour days at Operation Warp Speed, successfully accelerating the development of a COVID vaccine.

Hepburn currently serves as Senior Advisor on Pandemic Prevention within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chairs the Federal Steering Committee on Pandemic Innovation. His responsibilities include coordinating pandemic training and exercises across multiple federal agencies. His goal, he says, is to prepare for pandemics with the same level of seriousness that governments prepare for hurricanes and war. “Americans should expect every aspect of government to be in this state for a long time,” he says.

But as the COVID-19 crisis enters its fourth year, killing more than a million Americans and the highly contagious XBB.1.5 variant contributing to the rising number of cases, the pandemic threat The goal of eliminating the seems ever so far away. In the United States, our political will is weakening. Our public health workforce is exhausted and demoralized. Our deep political divisions have affected everything from financial flows to our fundamental beliefs in science. The anti-vax movement is organized day by day. And scientists fear that if the incoming Republican Congress barely seats the speaker, they are more likely to demonize their work at the next hearing than to support its effective deployment. increase.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, our public health agencies have been unable to persuade large segments of the population to be vaccinated or boosted or to wear face masks. University of Nebraska Medical Center.” I find it difficult to argue that trust and confidence in the agency has improved.” Data analyzed by Kathleen Hall Jamison, director of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that Americans are more It’s the politicized topics that are most likely to call into question the ‘recommendations’. Unfortunately, she says, “COVID is polarized.”

The need to mend these divisions and build systems of speed and trust is especially acute given that the next pandemic may be on the horizon. Even while battling COVID-19, we have dealt with the global monkeypox emergency and the Ebola outbreak in Uganda. Taken together, globalization, climate change, deforestation, the proliferation of new biotechs, and improperly regulated laboratories increase the risk of new outbreaks. experts say.

Some fear that SARS-CoV-2 will ultimately look like a dry run for something far worse. “SARS CoV-3 could be on the horizon,” Lawler says. First appearing in 2002, he combined his 10% fatality rate of SARS-CoV-1 with his SARS-CoV-2 contagiousness to create a “devastating Armageddon-type pandemic.”

To assess the question of how well-prepared the United States is to face the threat of a future pandemic, vanity fair We spoke with more than 20 doctors, scientists, policy analysts and other experts. The point was clear. We need to step up our game. Experts say he needs urgent attention in at least three key areas: revising public health messages, effectively deploying the private sector, and increasing global transparency.

Advances on these fronts come at a cost, but the money is running out and viruses have the upper hand. Viruses cannot survive outside a human host.” “They need all of us working together to send them.”

Public health message review

There is no doubt that trust and social cohesion can save lives during a pandemic. As proof, we can look to Japan. Fewer than 49 deaths per 100,000 from COVID, compared to the US toll of over 330 per 100,000 people. The Japanese government did not mandate vaccines or masks. Rather, peer pressure works, that’s why new york times reportedThere the mask is called face underwear. Like: You’d be embarrassed if you didn’t wear them. undermined the consciousness of the nation. The ubiquity of the phrase, which became Japan’s buzzword of 2020, almost certainly saved lives.

But in the US you’ll be faced with underwear that cuts it. Beverly Hills doctor and leader of the anti-vaccine movement Were you among those arrested for storming the Capitol during the Jan. 6 mutiny attempt? Can you compete with Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the approval to start?

“We are a divided nation, and we cannot prepare for a divided nation,” says Ali Mokhdad, a professor and chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington. Mokdad has spent the pandemic modeling its pathways and sees that outcomes can vary widely based on whether people follow public health guidance.

But Americans don’t wake up one morning and begin to unanimously respect authority and follow directions. Therefore, public health officials have an obligation to understand how they communicate with us as we are, not how they want us.

Confusing and jumbled health guidance from the CDC, which sometimes contradicts science, has helped fuel public suspicion of medical officials, experts say. At the height of the ohmic wave, the recommended 10-day quarantine became his five days, and there was no requirement for a negative test. His 6 foot distance at school made him 3 feet, which was also hardly clear. “Our CDC is dysfunctional at both doses,” says Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research.