14 Lessons for the Next Pandemic
March 15, 2021
14 Lessons for the Next Pandemic One year. More than 500,000 dead. What did the United States do wrong in handling Covid-19? What needs to be rethought? We asked scientists, public health experts and health advocates to tell us about mistakes, missed chances and oversights and how to prepare for the next pandemic. Responses are edited for length and clarity.
By the Health and Science Desk
Illustrations by Kathleen Fu
Prepare for What We Can’t Imagine We must overcome our collective failure of imagination. Covid-19 took us by surprise. We spent decades planning for a pandemic that would resemble the viruses we already knew. We didn’t plan for face masks, mass testing, stay-home orders, politicized decision making or devastating racial disparities. Looking forward, we need to prepare for a much broader range of threats.
Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday that he is accelerating the timetable for Connecticut’s coronavirus vaccine rollout, opening eligibility to people 45 to 54 on Friday, and then to everyone 16 to 44 beginning April 5.
Under the previous schedule, residents aged 45 to 54 would have been eligible starting March 22, and people 35 and older would have been allowed to sign up for an appointment beginning April 12. Those 16 to 34 would have had to wait until May 3.
As Peru battles COVID-19, tuberculosis finds new footing
Covid-related disruptions have given TB room to run, prompting health officials to explore new tactics to combat it
March 16, 2021 5:00PM (UTC)
A health worker after her vaccination against Covid-19 with the Chinese company Sinopharm s Vero vaccine at Edgardo Rebagliati Hospital in Lima, Peru. In early February, the South American country received the first shipment of 300,000 doses of the Chinese Corona vaccine. Sinopharm had already collaborated with Peru in the practical testing phase of the vaccine. (Alex Rosemberg/picture alliance via Getty Images)
When identified late last year, medical professionals were concerned that the variant – known as 501.v2 – would drive up Covid-19 infections. Professor Salim Abdool Karim said the strain had a higher viral load, meaning it could spread between people with ease. The infection rate rapidly increased, with President Cyril Ramaphosa reintroducing level 3 lockdown restrictions. As Gabriele Steinhauser of The Wall Street Journal writes, ‘A new coronavirus strain was surging across the country, thousands of holidaymakers were due to return from Covid-19 hot spots, and one in three coronavirus tests was coming back positive’. Then all of a sudden, cases of Covid-19 started to drop. ‘The cause of this steep decline in cases remains somewhat of a mystery’, says The Wall Street Journal, with Harry Moultrie of the NICD even telling Steinhauser ‘anybody who professes certainty [about why infections started dropping] is lying’. – Jarryd Neves
What Childhood Vaccine Rates Can Teach Us About COVID Vaccines medscape.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from medscape.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.