This article discusses pandemic risk in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and how better preparation for this catastrophic event could have prevented countless deaths.
The article begins as follows:
THIS PANDEMIC WAS NOT A SURPRISE. Experts have been warning for years that a novel respiratory coronavirus originating in animals could kill millions. If the original SARS virus were spread more readily by people with few or no symptoms, this might have happened 17 years ago. Although it was hard to know initially how severe this outbreak would be, it was just a matter of time before some more dangerous disease emerged. We may actually be lucky the current pandemic isn’t even worse. If SARS-CoV-2 were just a little more lethal or spread just a little more easily, many more people might die.
Yet we did not take important steps that could prevent disease outbreaks. We did not do enough to limit activities that could make viruses more likely to jump from other animals to humans, or to improve disease surveillance around the world, or to build the capacity needed to respond to a major outbreak. When SARS-CoV-2 began to spread, some governments initially tried to minimize what was happening or were simply too slow to take decisive action. As a result, we missed our opportunity to suppress the virus effectively.
The remainder of this article is available in California Magazine.
Image credit: Taiwan Military News Agency
This blog post was published on 28 July 2020 as part of a website overhaul and backdated to reflect the time of the publication of the work referenced here.