Lessons learned from the Pandemie

What Covid has taught us, and what the next one is to protect public health

In the late winter and early spring of 2020, the Coronavirus Pandemia grew from a geographically limited viral infection to a completely national emergency, causing life to be disturbed as we knew it. The destruction was huge: mass portality and widespread trauma. As the world has been stopped, public health workers mobilized who shifted in high gear to tackle the crisis.

Five years later, the figures are amazing: worldwide, More than 20 million Lives have been lost. In the United States, the death toll exceeded 1.2 million – greater than the fatal victims From the civil, world and vietnam rosoms combined. Tragically enough, the impact of the pandemie continues to exist, with At least 1,000 people According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Covid dies every week every week, 75% of them in the US.

While the scars of illness and feelings of loss of control lingers, this anniversary offers a chance for critical reflection: the balance of what we have learned, what worked and how public health can be better protected against future pandemies. One fact is certain: the Front-Line public employees of the country doctors, nurses, social workers and staff up and down in the hierarchy of our complex health care system fed their jobs heroic to combat a new virus, so that critical time was purchased until the first vaccines could be developed.

The recent and heartbreaking Measles outbreak In New Mexico and Texas, the constant need for continuous surveillance and prevention (ie vaccination) strategies. Indeed, lessons that we take to the future include:

A strong public health system is essential to combat new threats. In addition to combating chronic diseases, the public health system responds to crises that stop outbreaks before they start.

The Pandemie showed us how important it is to have systems that can quickly find and follow new viruses while they spread. It led a new era of genomic supervision, so that scientists could follow the evolution of the coronavirus and inform the strategies for public health.

Diagnostic tests helped to identify who was infected with the virus to keep track of their distribution in communities and to guide treatment decisions. Contact Tracers in turn disturbed the transmission chains by informing potentially exposed persons and offering crucial guidelines.

Future pandemies may require fast, mass tests. This requires sufficient stocks, trained staff and a stock of generic tests to prevent shortages.

Lesson 2: Develop countermeasures and interventions

Before a Covid vaccine was available, the Leaders of Public Health relied on daily human actions to control the virus. These include masking, social distances, travel restrictions and closures of school and business and business. The interventions went heated criticism Many people and are still a political flash point, but they have undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

In the beginning, experts turned out to have output data from the past and new technical tools to quickly determine the best way of acting. Due to Covid, scientists quickly created advanced computer models To predict how the virus would spread. These models helped governments to make smart choices by showing what could happen with different promotions, such as vaccinations or lockdowns.

Lesson 3: Make vaccines safe and effective for everyone

The COVID-19 vaccines are the fastest vaccines ever made. The rapid development, production and distribution of safe, effective vaccines in record time – a year – is a remarkable performance that prevented countless deaths. But the differences continued to exist, with marginalized communities that experience lower vaccination rates because they had no access to health care, transport or information.

Creating new medicines and vaccines for the next pandemic will be expensive and take time. To prepare, we must be looking for existing medicines and vaccines that can be reused and stored for future use. This means having a system to identify potential candidates and to ensure that they are safe, effective and accessible.

Lesson 4: Construction and maintenance trust by protecting communication channels

In a rapidly evolving pandemic, where evidence and guidance constantly shift, transparent and timely communication is of the utmost importance. Public Trust requires when the reason behind decisions is missing transparency, which impedes the acceptance of critical measures for public health.

To maintain trust and to combat incorrect information, constant efforts are needed to involve communities, share verified information and to improve health literacy. This includes collaboration with stakeholders, actively publishing accurate information and improving media literacy skills.

Lesson 5: Investing in people and partnerships

Covid has exposed deep health inequality, with vulnerable communities that experience worse results. Communities of color, the elderly and people with limited drugs were often confronted with higher infections, more serious illness and larger economic hardships. This emphasizes the urgent need for targeted interventions that tackle the root causes.

Hyperlocal involvement and community partnerships offer a powerful way to tackle these differences. By working directly with communities, we can make customized solutions that promote health herds.

Robust partnerships are essential and in a pandemic the world is small. This requires collaborations with the academic world, industry, government agencies and international authorities such as the World Health Organization, which played a key role in the global response to the pandemic. As a United Nations Agency consisting of 194 Member States, including the US, the WHO has provided guidance, distributed epidemiological updates and established international agreements that are necessary for a coordinated global effort.