Turning the juggernaut
The Lancet Planetary Health
Abstract
Beyond tragic loss of life, the global disruption caused by COVID-19 has revealed very tangibly how vulnerable we are to changing circumstances. A noteworthy aspect of the pandemic though is that it was not what Donald Rumsfeld would have referred to as an “unknown unknown”. Pandemics have occurred before and the threat of another has been raised as a concern by infectious disease researchers for decades, even if the timing can’t be predicted with any certainty. In short, we could quite reasonably have been better prepared than we were, not just in hindsight but based on information available before the pandemic began.
Topics & Concepts
Hindsight biasPandemicPolitical scienceCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)2019-20 coronavirus outbreakInfectious disease (medical specialty)LawLaw and economicsH1n1 pandemicComputer securityHistoryEmpathy and Medical EducationGlobal Public Health Policies and Epidemiology