Improving Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons From COVID-19

This report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) examines the shortfalls of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic response in the U.S. and provides recommendations to better address future public health crises. Despite decades of warnings and years of international planning for a pandemic, the U.S. and numerous other countries around the world faltered in COVID-19 response. This pandemic preparedness failure has led to an economic contraction and will ultimately cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The CFR found that the U.S. failed to adequately invest in pandemic preparedness efforts – such as prevention, detection, and response capabilities that have reduced the impact of COVID-19 in other countries. There were also shortcomings in global coordination and compliance with previously arranged agreements, including the International Health Regulations (IHR), which govern global health security response. China’s reporting and information sharing – key tenants of IHR – were flawed at best as the outbreak began, shortening the time the global community had to prepare and respond to the growing crisis. The CFR continued to describe U.S. failures in response speed, the stockpiling of necessary health resources, communication with the general public, and investment in state and local health systems. 

While it is clear that governments recognized the global threat of infectious diseases, they failed to adequately fund and execute plans made for disease response. In order to respond more effectively to the inevitability of future pandemics, the Council on Foreign Relations put forth recommendations to bolster pandemic preparedness. These recommendations range from adopting a robust strategy for domestic and global pandemic preparedness to strengthening the U.S. health system to building better global surveillance capabilities. Elevating pandemic preparedness to a key economic and security objective in the U.S., much like national defense, and revitalizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would be a significant step towards responding to future infectious disease outbreaks. These investments, along with other critical changes to pandemic preparedness infrastructure in the U.S., would allow the federal government to effectively anticipate, prevent, and respond to pandemics.