The Wall Street Journal - 04.04.2020 - 05.04.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, April 4 - 5, 2020 |C1

REVIEW

Passover’s Plagues

The Jewish holiday will

have new meanings in the

year of Covid-19C5

The ‘Right’ Stuff

Reclaiming American

conservatism...from the

conservatives Books C7

CULTURE|SCIENCE|POLITICS|HUMOR

ILLUSTRATION BRIAN STAUFFER

As a result, the world lacks a shared

understanding, or even a shared vocabu-

lary, for pandemic preparedness and co-

operation. Just look at the communica-

tion of events associated with Covid-19.

A “pneumonia of unknown cause” de-

tected in Wuhan was first reported to

the WHO office in China on December

31. A month later, WHO declared the
    outbreak a “public health emergency of
    international concern,” and then on
    March 11 declared a “pandemic.”
    Despite these announcements, much
    of the world acted like Covid-19 would
    not have an impact on their citizens. As

evidence to the contrary mounted, de-

spite weeks of warning, it was clear that

the U.S. faced this peril with no readily

accessible diagnostic tests, no proven

therapeutics, no vaccine and a shortage

of medical supplies needed by patients

(ventilators) and care providers (per-

sonal protective gear).

Future leaders must be challenged to

do much better. It is essential to develop

an early-warning system that closely

tracks global disease trends and distrib-

utes accurate, real-time information

about them. Every country must be able

to assess and contribute global health

data in nonpolitical ways to maximize the

chance of keeping its own citizens

healthy. And on the supply front, we need

a detailed plan that allows for raw mate-

rials and rapid response capability when

essential medical supplies and equipment

are needed. This means reinstatement of

the U.S. Pandemic Response Team within

the National Security Council and fully

funding the global disease outbreak pre-

vention efforts of the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention (CDC).

The U.S. can draw two broad lessons

from the tragic unavailability of the

equipment that health care

workers need to safely

treat coronavirus patients.

First, there is no substi-

tute for federal prepared-

ness when it comes to en-

suring a ready supply of

personal protective gear.

Companies like Apple and

Facebook stepped up to do-

nate masks they had stock-

piled when California wild-

fires pushed them to

protect their staff, and

other private companies were able to le-

verage their global supply chains to pitch

in. As grateful as we should be for these

efforts, it’s not the private sector’s job to

save us in a public health emergency.

Pleaseturntothenextpage

We must

develop an

early-warning

system that

closely

tracks global

disease.

Preparing

Fo r t h e

Next

Pandemic

The Covid-19 crisis has clear lessons for what we

can do now to stop a future global health emergency.

By Susan Desmond-Hellmann

HISTORY

We now rely on coffee

to help us meet the

demands of modern life,

but for centuries the drink

was viewed with doubt

and disgust.C4

PSYCHOLOGY

Neuroscience

shows how we

can achieve real

connections

using virtual

tools.C3

WEEKEND

CONFIDENTIAL

An ex-Navy SEAL

now in Congress

gained insights by

almost losing his

vision.C6

Viral

Math

The power of

exponential growth

explains the rapid

spread of disease—

andhowtostopit.C4

Inside

Dr. Desmond-Hellmann is the former

CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates

Foundation. She is an adjunct

professor at the University of

California, San Francisco, where she

was previously chancellor.

A

fter this, then what?

We’ve all run out of

words—unprecedented,

enormous, heartbreak-

ing—to describe Covid-19,

finding ourselves reading

so much depressing news

while hoping that the

curve of infection and

death starts to flatten. But the pandemic,

or more likely this phase of it, will end,

and it is not too early to ask, what hap-

pens next? More important, what needs

to happen next so that we do not find

ourselves in our current situation ever

again? I see three key areas that need to

evolve to make it less likely that the

world will face future pandemics.

Global Governance and Readiness.In

2015, Bill Gates was prescient in point-

ing out that countries carried out table-

top exercises planning for nuclear war

but did not practice thoroughly to get

ready for pandemics, especially the

most threatening sort of pandemics—

those, like Covid-19, spread through the

respiratory route. The World Health Or-

ganization would be the natural conve-

ner of these kinds of preparation exer-

cises. But many countries, especially

wealthier ones, are highly skeptical of

WHO and the need for cooperation to

ensure that the world stays healthy.

The perception—and at times, the re-

ality—is that WHO is slow and bureau-

cratic. The organization’s need to an-

swer to 194 countries necessarily limits

its ability to move nimbly, and expecta-

tions for its rapid action are hard to

square with the fact that the organiza-

tion is chronically underfunded.