Although nobody knows when the next pandemic will happen, the mistakes and lessons learned from COVID-19 should be a guiding force in helping us prepare for a similar situation in the future.
Despite the fact that most of us have collectively blocked the year of 2020 from our minds, the COVID-19 pandemic will be forever remembered as one of the largest crises of modern history.
Coronavirus was the first rapidly spreading, globally infectious disease that humanity had seen in almost a century – and to say we were wildly unprepared for it would be an understatement.
Sure, vaccines were prepared in record timing in order for society to move on and function as normal. But as they were prepared, many lost their lives despite the fact that we stayed locked in our homes in order to protect ourselves and the most vulnerable for the better part of a year.
At the recent annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the World Health Organization (WHO) asked global leaders to confront the prospect of a new global pandemic in the future.
This is a ritual that began as early as 2015, when the WHO and its member organisations outwardly acknowledged the lack of international readiness for significant disease outbreaks.
Looking to rectify this, they initiated a plan known as the R&D Blueprint for Action to Prevent Epidemics, identifying a list of existing pathogens that warranted serious concern.