Preparedness

Featured article; History of Surveillance “learning from the past, reflecting on the present, and planning for the future can further enhance public health surveillance for the good of humankind”: This paper provides a review of the past, present, and future of public health surveillance—the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of health data for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health action. 10.6064/2012/875253

Featured resource; To better address pandemic and epidemic risks, the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence is under development and will strengthen intelligence specifically for pandemics and epidemics by striving for better data, better analytics, and better decisions. As a global collaboration of partners from multiple sectors, the WHO Hub will enable innovators to co-create tools and used linked data that all countries need to prepare, detect, and respond to pandemic and epidemic risks. The WHO Hub will drive innovations to increase the availability and linkage of diverse data, develop tools and predictive models for risk analysis, improve public health decision-making, and monitor disease control measures and infodemics. GDHF 2021: Welcome Keynote - Bing video 

Featured presentation; Michael Lewis' podcast on... Pandemic Planning. “The United States had a pandemic plan. But when a pandemic came, we hesitated to follow it. The country was hobbled by argument and doubt. Much of that doubt came from experts who proposed that Covid might not be as lethal as scientists feared. Michael Lewis returns to the subject of his latest book, The Premonition, to understand why it's so hard to trust the truest signs of expertise: a willingness to follow the evidence.” 

Policy Focus; Policy Lessons from the History of Pandemic Preparedness | Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics (harvard.edu) “This white paper draws lessons for policy progress from the recent history of pandemic preparedness in the United States, with a focus on the Strategic National Stockpile of medical and protective equipment that forms an essential element of pandemic response efforts. This paper finds that supplies of vital protective equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile were greatly diminished in the years preceding the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic; this atrophy of pandemic vigilance contributed to prolonged shortages of equipment needed to protect healthcare workers and first responders from infection during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a strategy of reform for the Strategic National Stockpile designed to secure a sustained evolution of vigilance for the purpose of defending the United States against future pandemics.” 

Global organizations and initiatives;