Designing a Factual-Based Strategy to Prepare for the Next COVID Pandemic

Abstract

The US response to the COVID-19 pandemic was disastrous although parts of it were beneficial. Tons of misinformation, a weak central government, a lack of public support, and inaccurate testing contributed to this disastrous response. For the next COVID pandemic, mistakes cannot happen again as it has killed millions of people and has been almost 2 years since the start of its discovery. Many lives could have been saved if the US had a better response to the pandemic. The US should take into consideration of other countries’ actions against the pandemic to better decide its next response. For example, the US should imitate South Korea’s robust testing efforts and enforcement of quarantining guidelines, Africa’s community health systems, and American Samoa’s travel ban. Most importantly, the US needs to learn from its past mistakes. The actions of the next COVID pandemic the US should implement are making sure that the government shouldn’t downplay COVID’s seriousness, clear effective messaging, better COVID testing, more PPE, travel bans, and stronger enforcement of quarantining guidelines. To ensure that the US has a better response to the next COVID pandemic, these recommendations should be followed and enforced.