It’s hard to argue that the global COVID-19 pandemic caught the world off-guard. Even as it began spreading, many remained in denial that it would arrive on their continent or in their country. In Bill and Melinda Gates’ annual letter, they addressed this, saying that globally we need to prepare for the next pandemic as we do for war. (1)
The Gates Outline How To Prepare For the Next Pandemic
Every year, Bill and Melinda Gates write an annual letter outlining the previous year and what they see as important focuses for the one to come. Unsurprisingly, they focused this year’s letter primarily on the COVID-19 pandemic and how to prepare for the next pandemic so that it doesn’t cause the mass damage and disruption that this one did. (1)
“To prevent the hardship of this last year from happening again, pandemic preparedness must be taken as seriously as we take the threat of war.” Bill writes. (1)
In the letter, both Bill and Melinda talk about how much this pandemic has taught us about preparedness and devastating a lack of it can be. When you’re prepared, you can act quickly. In the case of a rapidly spreading disease, speed is absolutely critical. (1)
“Places that had recent experiences with respiratory outbreaks—such as Taiwan with SARS and South Korea with MERS—responded to COVID-19 more quickly than other places because they already knew what to do,” he says. (1)
The idea is to have systems in place, with trained personnel, to respond to infectious disease outbreaks before reaching pandemic or even simply endemic scale. (1)
How To Prepare For The Next Pandemic
“We can’t afford to be caught flat-footed again. The threat of the next pandemic will always be hanging over our heads—unless the world takes steps to prevent it.” writes Bill. (1)
Much like how the military trains for war using games and simulations, Gates says that multidisciplinary infectious disease task-forces need to do the same. This will be a group of infectious disease first-responders who are fully trained to respond to potential health crises at a moment’s notice. This group, he estimates, will need to consist of roughly 3,000 people worldwide. (1)
COVID-19 showed us that we have the capability to produce vaccines quickly, and we can use these developments in the future to prevent another global crisis from occurring. After the Ebola epidemic, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation partnered with governments and other organizations to create the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). (1)
They knew that there would be a future need for rapidly produced vaccines and have been a major player in the funding and development of the COVID-19 vaccines. (1)
Gates says there needs to be a massive investment to stop the next pandemic from happening. This will most likely tens of billions of dollars per year. Compared to the estimated global cost of COVID-19 of $28 trillion, this isn’t so bad. (1)
“The world needs to spend billions to save trillions (and prevent millions of deaths). I think of this as the best and most cost-efficient insurance policy the world could buy.” (1)
Wealthy Nations Need to Step Up
In the wake of COVID-19, we learned that in order to prevent a pandemic, we need a unified global effort. This is especially apparent in poorer communities and nations. The health and economic fall-out of these situations always hit these citizens the hardest. (1)
It will be up to wealthier nations to support those countries and the people who live there. Until the virus is no longer a problem for everyone, it will continue to be a problem for us all. (1)
“From the beginning of the pandemic, we have urged wealthy nations to remember that COVID-19 anywhere is a threat everywhere,” Melinda writes. “Until vaccines reach everyone, new clusters of disease will keep popping up. Those clusters will grow and spread. Schools and offices will shut down again. The cycle of inequality will continue. Everything depends on whether the world comes together to ensure that the lifesaving science developed in 2020 saves as many lives as possible in 2021.” (1)
To conclude, to prepare for the next pandemic, we first need to finish fighting this one. The Gates say that this fight is not over until it is over for everyone around the world – regardless of race, sex, and socio-economic status. We need to take the lessons learned this time and use them to our advantage. This ensures the next time we’re faced with an infectious disease; it can be snuffed out before it puts the entire world in lockdown. (1)
To read the Gates’ full letter, click here.
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References
- “The year global health went local.” Gate Notes. Bill and Melinda Gates. JAnuary 27, 2021.