More than three years into the COVID-19 pandemic and with America’s public-health emergency expiring on May 11, it is clear that this moment is an opportunity not only to reflect on successes but also to grapple with the setbacks, pitfalls, and failures that defined our response. The responsibility to improve our response to future health crises lies in correcting our failures in this one.
BY KIZZMEKIA S. CORBETT
NATION
INSIDE
TURKEY’S MOMENTOUS ELECTION CHALLENGE
THE SUICIDE CRISIS OVERWHELMING AMERICAN GIRLS
WHAT MOTHERS REALLY WANT FOR MOTHER’S DAY
I was a senior researcher at the National Institutes of Health, leading a team that developed a COVID-19 vaccine. As I review our fight against the virus, from the front row of the front line, three paths of action stand out.
First, the government needs to change the paradigm that defines the focus of federal research, with an emphasis on being proactive instead of reactive. There are 23 families of viruses associated with human infection, and the state of the research into each of these families varies significantly. In my specialty of coronaviruses, we had made significant strides before the pandemic struck. The strides we made were not because of any extraordinary funding streams, but merely because we were interested in closing gaps in scientific understanding—particularly in light of the recent threats posed by SARS-1 and MERS, which showed the pandemic potential of coronaviruses.
It is often deemed “miraculous” that our COVID-19 vaccine progressed to a Phase 1 clinical trial in merely 66 days, but the process could have been even more efficient had our technology gone into Phase 1 clinical trial before the pandemic. Basking in our successes means admitting that we were dealt a lucky hand; the pandemic response could have been way worse. Our understanding of many of these viral families lags far behind our understanding of coronaviruses. If a pathogen from one of those ever takes off, our wait to clinical trial might be 600 days, not 66.
I’d like to see us invest in each of the 23 viral families that infect humans. The National Institutes of Health should lay out checkpoints: key scientific milestones we need to hit for each viral family, so we’re ready to move rapidly in case a pathogen emerges and begins to spread. The investment would be significant, but the total cost would be far smaller than COVID-19’s estimated $16 trillion drag on America’s economy and the enormous toll of lives lost.
SECOND, PUBLIC-HEAL
