‘…The US will need a second 9/11 Commission to examine its failed pandemic response is getting a second look as well—because health experts are coming to the realization that, as devastating as Covid-19 has been, it could have been far worse. This pandemic has not approached the apocalyptic impact of the 1918 influenza, which killed an estimated 100 million people between 1918 and 1919, or of HIV, which has killed 32 million people since it arrived in 1981.
Spillovers of animal pathogens into the human world—the source of flu and HIV and the virus behind Covid-19—happen on no predictable timeline. That means another pandemic could be on its way at any moment. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seemed to acknowledge as much when he told the House of Representatives at a hearing on June 4: “You think we weren’t prepared for this, wait until we have a real global threat for our health security.”…’
— Via WIRED
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