About the process. I can understand people why would you write about this, it hasnt happened yet regularly took a step back and not ready for things as they unfold, im not talking about global trade what i am doing is standing by to say okay, by a pandemic and why now . Something i could do because you know i like many others, writing books, weve been saying will happen, hes of the virus is we need to worry about, this is what we need to do. She started so obviously the protections were there. This was kind of the moment to repeat all that stuff at a time people didnt really understand and would make sense to the message might really come home to the people. Emphasizing the warning about the pandemic, leaders have frequently overlooked in this one quote was very enlightening, some assistive they are providing the rescue. This is something that came to you as your writing the book . It is kind of postcolonial but i think it is a deeper issue than that. Prevention is not that texting, people are always complaining. We can succeed, people wonder, nothing happens. Prevention doesnt attract a lot of attention. Its so obvious that it is way cheaper than a cure. 2 of what its costing us to handle the pandemic think that is probably over but we knew to be good preventive measures and what was happening in the first place. The city of toronto in los angeles. Los angeles didnt go through sars in 2003 but both took the learning about in particular ventilators, a disease that causes pneumonia and required people to go on ventilators. The physical for said what are we kicking this around for . We got rid of it they still had and i wonder how many people over the years attacked the City Government and said what are you spending on . As mentioned, its a false alarm dont go anywhere, the spread of a pandemic when you think they can walk that line . A lot of various entrance already. What is the chance we will be hit with an overwhelming Nuclear Attack . Why do we need to renew it very expensively to guard against it . Seems to be very few questions about it. It costs a vast amount more. That is insurance. People will say if you buy insurance, your house doesnt burned down. And you say to the insurance company, i want my money back march people just did not see this as a risk. People have gotten out of the habit of seeing Infectious Disease as a risk. A pandemic happening now, but a chunk of money here, i could spend it on something. We know theres going to be a pandemic sometimes its going to be very sad. Its one of those, its a low probably impact. Catastrophic explosion in your court. If you might get others, often pandemic at the same time, a covid19 pandemic. Those things are normal possibilities but nobody knows if they happen but if it does, its huge. How do you convince someone so convince set money aside for that risk you cant even quantify the risk to happen you cant do that. You cannot predict when this is coming cant get policymakers the kinds of tools they need to make those decisions. We have all seen what this can do, hopefully maybe it will be a little more effective. Leaders have started to make statements best way to approach for better preparedness, the reference in the increase in ranges of medicine. Referent development manufacturing, when you start . Whats the most important. The most important thing would be in the meeting, is that it was old in order to enact some of that. There are a number of things need to do, i dont think its a mystery but they said will hold a meeting of health and finance in the coming month in march and the statement was brilliant. They went to i dont know, linda and her team and asked what she be asking for, it was a pretty comprehensive list in all the right things. I was just on the cheeks 20 to see if anything happened. Nothing is scheduled anywhere cap. There is one thing they didnt hit. One think with covid less brought it home, National Sovereignty still rules unchallenged International Health management. Thomas of who, who cap is infection but it doesnt spread human to human. Who cannot say great, will be there tomorrow and will talk to your technical experts. Then the truth comes out. All of a sudden, actually, we have more deaths than that. Especially if you have measures they are used to talking to each other, the truth comes out. When you so much to do that. The wj couldnt go in there would say you dont have the right ways to come in. There is shared risk and shared responsibly. There is currently no way of ensuring that. China, i think, suffered from having delayed in the spread persontoperson because of long as it didnt think that, take the measures and move on the 20th of january, they finally did but they have to shut the city down. Basically, i think we should all know we are all in this together and need to share information. We cannot leave it to the governing countries, whatever they are to be in charge of responding to these things. Just china that keeps quiet and as you know, International Health regulations, the only treaty got governing this came into being because the 1800s, the citys have these outbreaks. Nobody else would have them. There was an effort to get people to share information in the region there was so much resistance to that. So given where we are now in the last few weeks what can they do on the general lack of trust. You cant do anything as people always say the who is the Member States and then to override those issues theyve never given enough of our budget i think we have all seen we need some sort of ordination and management of these issues. They have to do this and with that capability there is the inspection regime everybody is subject to. That capability under the Chemical Weapons Convention and is not doing it you can come anytime along those lines we want to make sure the neighbors arent doing it also so thats okay and the Communicable Diseases a much more several risk and those of the International Health organizations and why we have a Health Regulation and then everybody can be illness together so how good is their surveillance . Will help you but how many have you diagnosed in the past year . And then youre not looking hard enough you dont know you dont have polio lets Work Together and they have done a and all the countries in africa. And there is one thing we know more than anything else it is the one thing the g 20 declaration is the diagnostics and the test position also figure out a way somehow to get us together to make sure people can watch four diseases one of the problems letters are mounted to humans china is in a managed to take a while to see it had a problem. We need to work on surveillance and we need to do it under a treaty. Yes there is a parallel that is very powerful with verification and calls but that idea of the systems have gone on for decades and those that have been in the works but then on that note so to what extent how much buyin is needed it is chronically underfunded actually with that institutional structure did as that was the main problem yes just one guy in the wrong place in the Organization Running a skeleton staff on the skeleton budget. If thats the case it totally reinvented itself as a global Emergency Response organization to say this is how you are doing the Vaccination Program so that nice long slow standard an ambulance chaser or driver in reinvented itself this was only six years ago. It had a huge cut in the budget for frankly reasons that do not make sense and that puts all of us at more risk because you can criticize the who we are supposed to do that but its not the only game in town and that collaborative effort with the very real risk of the pandemic disease its really the only agency we have should that be the ambulance chaser or the driver . Absolutely so thats the main question with those new responsibilities. So that comment being a journalist in the space so as to what extent have you seen in terms of communicating their findings and the literacy and in terms of communication . There have been some people and where they have been reporting this. Palazzo scientist really going out there making the point to try to communicate which i have to say was a moment of sheer panic i was getting a lot of emails back as i get back to you but with most of the research and also to engage in the lot of Public Outreach and was helping me with thing and then just that i cant do this anymore but unfortunately these are points i had already talked about and so to what extent you continue your research or did you have that responsibility and to be more spoken to the others . And with that change that comes out and to have comfort in the space and that is definitely a challenge in itself so to be a hugely prominent feature of the pandemic so how damaging hasnt been during this pandemic . That is in the book. Like preaching to the choir room and contribute what you can this is the moment telling people what i know when they can really hear it. No Information System is ever perfect or the scientist you are more articulate they dont go into science. Or that skewing is here but so we dont seem to have any problem talking to each other. With that scientific message. Because they are told they are the devil with any conspiracy theories because they appeal to people they are not constrained by fax. So people may think the vaccine industry was inventing the pandemic and more broadly with the situation we are in against the vaccine the data is now showing one out of six people in the us because of their concern and it is really challenging dont even have enough people who are willing to take it. Working at the Risk Management to sincerely explain the facts that would bring them around and to the planet change it would just make them more with the climate change. There must be a broader answer to establish trust to begin with and also not so much speaking from one community to another but get them going within the community and have people speaking in terms of values in language that they understand and should be able to spread that way from one to another. And then getting from that reporter about an expert myself so we see them play no one that is permanent and then with those quantitative arguments there is a lot of us and them and the dialogues and there needs to be more ways to present a simple factual evidence they can relate to regardless of their politics or personality there has to be more of that. I know how you do that because i would be writing another book. You make a very good point and this is how people can be wary of vaccines and that could be a concern in the space because there are important conversations and that i do worry with the anti vaccination and advocates is with safety in this space and the men to wait until there is vaccine. I understand with the funding and the rush to get to a vaccine where is something similar and i looked around and i discovered were not doing nearly as much as we should be. There is some very good work done on the treatments and preventative measures. But there were some very anti promising a couple of years after sars because for some reason and people decided it wasnt coming back so someone needs to do more digging. I am not quite sure on this whole story how this happened but i would like to know that the who still said he was upset but yet there was no research but yet at the same time the whole business of the Silver Bullet leading to this rather regrettable situation that is reported russia approved for general use a vaccine apparently has only been through a phase i safety trial may be a bit of these two certainly not the big phase three trial that you need to establish whether it works and who and when and what you need to know that. Apparently has been up for general use it is the arcane who to approve potential medications but it was taken and run with to get kudos to the government and its all nationalistic. It is considered to be a nationalistic goal than that is our problem because then they dont care what country it is in so in the book i outlined the situation the rich countries cannot afford vaccine but there are a few poor countries that dont so they will keep circulating and it will evolve this is not in anyones interest if you say were all in this together not that i and me survivor but it is true we are all in this together we cannot protect ourselves. And i worry and then we will save the world that is just willing to undermine everything to invent the vaccine in many ways assume there isnt the many problems like coronavirus that will be the rough one and people like gabby who runs the organization here in geneva and then to get the budget nor the smartest people we ever know when to get the vaccine distributed is the real value i cant see that helping. With that nationalistic impulses and those general account measures thinking we will generate out and for very good reasons of manufacturing capacity in terms of the understanding of the pandemic and what lessons from that but also see a lot of differences of how they operate so what is helpful metaphor . Like anything that has an accurate reflection we have a pandemic in 2009 it was a direct descendent of the previous virus everyone thought everyone born before 1957 was probably immune. So they were worried it would be pretty nasty it turns out it was okay so thats one of the reasons it was nasty it only needed a small change in that would not have been the case. Right now we have europe and china circulating and we had no idea what it word turn out to be and i mentioned before wouldnt it be great if we god pandemic in the middle of covid19 . That is a possibility. You handle that in a particular way theres no point that has really been promoted from the first everybody planned for the flu yes we talk about pandemics a lot and the thing is look at the pandemic plan there is a canadian plan because thats the one virus that will go pandemic so we have to be prepared ways to think of a pandemic is something completely different to say we were prepared for this other thing . I think we need to be grown up and we need to do a lot of different things. I cant believe currently there is a lawsuit undertaken in the states of the one antiviral drug that we know works because people have been doing this systematic Information Campaign talking about science journals. Because they have science looking at how it works is somebody is dying of viral pneumonia and a pandemic is completely different in other countries have stockpiles that is subjected to those legal challenges in the states and in europe as well i honestly dont know what their problem is. I try to understand it there are factual and thats not true but we actually have preparation there with a it is some have actually done. And then taking that energy and attention one thing that is so interesting with the next pandemic we all recognize with the who a couple of years ago and then to recognize. But the who sars like coronavirus. With the preparation and yet that was established in china the last few years and the concerns of the possible transmission to the un and Nothing Happened and its no ones job. I was talking to david morris he knows this kind of issue and says basically i was encouraged to hear him say the same thing that i did and then to discover the viruses to see what they could do it is a threat were putting pandemic in the title just in case you missed it even though they are virologist it is ones to sit down together and say the who and those are the viruses so you cant say we were warned and then all those hours whose job is to say you do this . Ears the money . So mormons whose job it is to take the warnings and act on them. In the only organization for the Coronavirus Vaccine thats all that was going on and standing up in the wake of ebola everybody was scared of it being used few years ago and then took an entire year to get that tested in the field and 2014 and then basically it is set up have to do this faster when we take that lesson home. And not to have that multimillion dollar effort the who said when i talk to scientists thats what they say. I want to ask you about that. So basically i was in a meeting and we were all talking talking to the guys to ego Health Alliance had this president 2016 to point out that every one of those i keeps you awake at night. Okay. Anywhere up 75 percent of the people that got it so far it has been very limited because you to catch it directly to the world into india starting to spread between respiratory droplets that we heard this recently that is scary it spreads like ebola thats bad enough but respiratory droplets . Thats really hard to control flu spreads that way covid19 spreads our way if it did not become less lethal i know we just call that civilization ending and i think theyre right i wouldve thought there was a scientist this is the working so hard that to see if it is pandemic i was told that once thats okay its bird flu and 60 percent will how do you know that . And with that evolutionary rationale that isnt necessarily in the viruses interest spreading from person to person very readily at least since the 19 twenties and certainly since the 1980s. Really with the last mutation would it become older i think we can count on that and that is scary and covid19 everybody says its turned the world upside down and they say this is a virus sars had 10 percent fatality covid has 1 percent have the people over 60 who have sars died. What if that had gone a pandemic and we were on the edge of it people were telling me at the time this is here to stay if it gets loose if we just cant control it we will never get rid of it fortunately we got lucky and the debate joe had a very Effective Campaign like Contact Tracing and quarantine fortunately it was pretty easy to quarantine and everybody cooperated eventually the chinese were very open first they tried to deny it bill then launched an Incredible Campaign and then they really go to work on something and so did everybody else i speak as a canadian here but they finally get it back under control. People dont realize it going through an awful lot of descriptions. And thats important that you mention that is largely before considered and then particularly yearly on with a pandemic thats part of the challenge and it wasnt really known and with to lead the response of so another example talk about pompeo another area and when the first ebola case arrived everybody was talking about that is the worstcase scenario and then those incredibly deadly infection disease in the densely populated city and with those calls with our earlier conversation one of the things that need to be put in place and what we can do now to focus on preventing that even the pandemic would strike. The nigerians had in place the medical organization the polio Infrastructure India as a structure in place to transition into a general Public Health monitoring and implementation agency. It was surveillance. The reason the nigerians could get that under control they have a structure. What we really need is to see what diseases people have thats what we dont have. We need much more work to do that and to retool the who to spearhead the effort and those to intimately characterize every virus. And then to see what some people to have a good diagnosis for those that are hotspots understand india will cut down and also coal mines. Is anybody talking about going in there and we could do that. We can do that with soviet china with the coronavirus jumping from september and then regularly monitor and to catch things early. And that should not be difficult. Somebody needs to do it. And when there are cases in one of those things that with these pandemics were the highest in the world with the covid19 response for those various reasons so what are your thoughts with your school of thought when many more think holistically . I love the fact we cant put together a Rapid Response team with any country in the world within 24 hours of the pandemic being announced. Excuse me . There needs to be clear plans people that are not political and scientific experts. There needs to be a lot of thinking and planning and investment in response. But there needs to be leadership at the top. With that insight im currently residing in the European Union and they all pull in the same direction to begin with. This has taught us where the problems are. Countries will stand by their independence but we need to Work Together if one country does a bad job the country next door does a great job, it wont help because the huge viral load will spill over we need to coordinate what we do it really helps to be an island and to have extremely in my and leadership but it helps those that were not doing as good of a job as you are and then just to let the scientist take the lead they tend to agree with each other and we need to sit down before it happens to decide who will do that and what are our options and how we deal with the possibility what we thought we were going to have to do what is not the right thing we were prepared to do social distancing nobody thought to beef up the capabilities with tracking and tracing. And then number of major countries just jumping to humans that it hasnt gotten use to us in fact england was just Getting Started so that containment isnt an option we can do tracking and tracing early on even if thats the way the viruses behaving we need agencies that has the top scientific advice as it becomes available. Anybody who specializes in organizations on organizational response needs to be considered. Nobody has done that there are eight Pandemic Response agency with Health Ministries and the ranking laboratory with the virus that you scientist who could be a physicist there is not a agency in most places and advised who are not virologist who are experts at Risk Assessment and communication the who brings in social scientist to make serious mistakes to communicate risk to people in west africa during ebola. When it retools itself as an Emergency Response agency it has people from the humanitarian Response Community and it was a rough learning curve they were told me as a teaching a penguin to fly. [laughter] just throw them off the cliff and the thing flew. You cant evolve institutionally with the risks you know that are coming in anybody who is likely to be a stakeholder. I suppose there is a case to be made to bring organizations that are against vaccines are in the planning stages of things so they know the risk in their interest. All i can say that is expecting the small elite to do the right kind of planning and everybody going with them probably will not work and we need to find a way. We talk about about the pandemic and the neglect and response so how do we come out of this clearly who is on board and has been with that multilateral perspective so how do you convince government and philanthropists to say now we change our approach . With a pandemic that should do it. We should set people down to say it could have been worse and our response couldve been a whole lot better but almost everybody couldve done a better job so now it seriously take stock and put money into this where there is money it builds up the establishment and peoples whose jobs it is to do this with institutional frameworks and network of experts around the world to talk to each other. We have a complex problem you saw that with members not hierarchies we dont need to tell people what to do people need to say their piece and having a way to have a joint solution to various problem to just identify the problem for a start everybody feels they have a stake those are just the general principles of management anyone in private industry is aware of but in the public sphere we ignore that in the Public Health sphere Public Health has been neglected by government ever since we all just decided we defeated Infectious Disease in the seventies and we havent we knew this was coming. But basically it is nobodys job to deal with us. People are waving their arms its nobodys job. We need to create networks of agencies in Different Countries to talk to all the other agencies so we have a Community Globally of people who are used to dealing with us who visit the laboratories and who can advocate for more money and as a result is that type of Global Network to continue with these problems it will be a local agency and unlikely the country. Probably a doctor in the on hospital testing negative for flu but i dont know what it is. But then actually there was a system that system if it is everybodys job to tell a Central Authority directly those that are worried about the Economic Impact counsel that was a good system the chinese set up i think its a shame the other people told the doctors to disagree on disregard but the people whose job it is to monitor these diseases are talking to each other, issuing alerts, the online Bulletin Board if there is a problem they were among the first to let everybody know that more of that were everyone is talking to everyone that the university of toronto also wrote a book during covid and way to get past National Sovereignty he uses the example with the Arms Treaties but he says pandemics are primarily in information problem i wish i included that in my book. [laughter] but hes right preventing a pandemic is an information problem people talking to people institutions that can get things done. I cant agree more. And with all the World Leaders the really enjoyed reading your book were looking forward to the next one. The police have long been collecting their own data and information people they have contact with the whats happening now in the digital age police are increasing information on those that have no criminal justice contact and part of that has to do with a variety of the data they are purchasing information from privately collected Companies Using automated license plate readers you have to be pulled over for the data to be put into the system so that is being used