‘We’re not ready’: US lags on pandemic preparedness after Covid, experts say | US news

While the hantavirus outbreak is unlikely to trigger the next major epidemic, it highlights how public health in the U.S. has deteriorated: its ability to test for rare diseases, its expertise in epidemic prevention and response, its ability to combat misinformation and rebuild trust.

“Assuming everything goes well in containing this epidemic, which it does, the conclusion shouldn’t be ‘we’re fine,'” said Stephanie Psaki, the former White House global health security coordinator. “We are not ready for such threats”

Psaki noted that many people in healthcare institutions who planned to respond quickly to epidemics and the systems that supported them have now disappeared. But “This is just one of many pathogens. These things will continue to happen.” And he pointed out that according to scientific models, there is a 50/50 chance of an epidemic at least as bad as Covid in the next 25 years.

Psaki and other former senior US officials said at a recent meeting that examining mistakes made and progress made during the Covid outbreak could help us prepare for the next big outbreak. activity In Washington DC.

Misinformation is one of the biggest challenges facing public health. Conspiracy theories and rumors are not new; Even the Milan plague of the 1630s had its share.

But “the only difference from hundreds of years ago is social media,” said Anthony Fauci, the president’s former chief medical advisor and former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “We are overwhelmed” by misinformation on the internet, he said, calling it “a real problem for which I see no easy solution.”

Fauci said people often don’t connect to the rigorous studies in the New England Journal of Medicine, which include methods sections, statistical analyzes and 17 additional figures, but they often connect to social media influencers who promote bogus treatments.

“It’s striking. It’s painful, but it’s true that someone who is a credible influencer on social media will outshine any scientist who tries to show you data, so you can’t fight misinformation with data,” Fauci said. “You have to combat misinformation by finding a better way to communicate with people at a level they can understand.”

That means rapid release of accurate information and should include debunking myths before they have a chance to spread, Fauci said. “Otherwise you’re always playing catch. And when you play catch, you lose.”

Officials also need to be better at communicating uncertainty, said Nina Schwalbe, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy and Policy and former director of the Covid-19 Vaccine Access and Distribution Initiative at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“We say things too simply and then people lose trust.” But people can deal with uncertainty because “the world is an uncertain place,” he said.

Advances resulting from the pandemic, such as mRNA vaccines, widely seen as one of the greatest technological advances of this generation, are now at risk due to funding cuts and increased misinformation.

Fauci said the science conducted during the pandemic has been “remarkable” but has often been “lost in the somewhat confused public health response.” Vaccine development began six days after the Sars-CoV-2 genome was published, and a vaccine that was approximately 95% effective would be available 11 months later.

“This didn’t happen by chance; it happened because of years of investment in basic and clinical research,” Fauci said. This work itself was built on the response to a different epidemic, HIV. Fauci said the Covid vaccine is “one of the best vaccines ever developed,” especially because of its ability to be changed overnight as the virus evolves and because it can be produced quickly in very large quantities.

“He saved us,” he said. “Can you imagine how many more people will die?”

‘We must invest in public health’

But now this work is being withdrawn.

Saying that the USA failed to slow down the epidemic in its flawed efforts to vaccinate the world, Fauci added: “We got in our own way. We did not make equality our driving force.”

When the U.S. later offered vaccines to other countries, a lack of planning, including basic supplies like having enough syringes, hobbled the effort. “Tens of millions of doses of vaccine are meaningless if there is no way to distribute them to the country that needs them,” Fauci said.

Psaki said this delay in global access to Covid vaccines has done “profound” and “long-lasting” damage to alliances between the US and other countries. “It’s reinforced by this administration’s positions, but the damage was deep and it’s very, very difficult to rebuild trust after that kind of betrayal.” MPOX outbreak response Psaki said 2024 is better, partly because we already have vaccines, but “they still haven’t been able to put these vaccines into use.”

Fauci said it is also important to develop and distribute tests quickly. “The South Koreans were doing 20,000 tests a day, and we were dealing with five tests that didn’t work.” But the “disaster” extends beyond bad testing to “a refusal to believe there are other ways to do this,” he said.

Fauci said pandemic preparedness isn’t just a domestic issue; it should include working closely with international partners and “this is something we are unfortunately moving away from now and that is very troubling to me”.

Donald Trump has moved to leave the World Health Organization (WHO), which Psaki called “an absolutely essential institution.” He noted that the US contribution to the WHO was $130 million, roughly equivalent to the Pentagon’s recent spending on lobster and steak.

In the absence of federal guidance, states are leading the way by forming health alliances and working directly with WHO.

“From where I sit, the federal government will not play the role needed in the next pandemic, and so we are watching states step in,” said Matthew Kavanaugh, director of the Georgetown center for global health policy.

Psaki said the fundamentals of epidemic response and pandemic preparedness have not changed: “Stop a threat from emerging, quickly identify the threat, contain the threat, find a way to respond to the threat, keep people alive and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.”

Experts worry that a public divided by politics and inundated with misinformation will have no appetite for public health measures. But Psaki said it’s important to “have a little more room for hope and trust.” “Most families want to keep their family members safe,” he said, noting that this differs from the motivations of political leaders and others who might benefit from misinformation.

Schwalbe’s father was one of the first victims of Covid in New York. Schwalbe said he fell ill in March 2020 because the entire system collapsed. “When he died, it was just me and my dad in his apartment on Lexington Avenue.”

They didn’t have oxygen or palliative care, but they did have refrigerated trucks for the bodies and sirens constantly blaring on the street. He knew six people who died from Covid. This experience made him more determined to strengthen public health before the next crisis arrives.

“We can’t leave public health as this invisible thing that people complain about when it doesn’t work,” Schwalbe said. “We should invest in this”