How Prepared Are We For The Next Pandemic? Not Very, Experts Show
What will happen when an unexpectedly virulent flu, or SARS, or Disease X—any other rapidly spreading viral infections—spreads globally causing a pandemic? How prepared are we? What do we need to do to be ready?
These are some of the questions faced by global leaders in public health, industry, and government in a pandemic preparedness exercise called Event 201. The program was a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Trying to improve preparedness is critically important as we will be seeing more epidemics from factors like climate change, shifting and increasing populations, urbanization, deforestation, and globalization.
The experts ran through a carefully designed, detailed simulation of a new (fictional) viral illness called CAPS or coronavirus acute pulmonary syndrome. This was modeled after previous epidemics like SARS and MERS.
What follows hasn’t happened yet, but the scenario was quite realistic, presuming that the infection began with animals and then was transmitted to people, just as has happened in past pandemics. There were even prepared “news” clips from a fictional GNN, with health experts and talking heads pontificating, and flashy graphics showing the spread of the pandemic.
http://archive.is/u4ljH#selection-2893.0-2901.217
FORBES a on dec 12 2019 day when it started.
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