This means COVID-19 will be much harder to contain than Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which were only spread by those showing symptoms and were much less efficiently transmitted. There is also strong evidence that it can be transmitted by people who are just mildly ill or not even showing symptoms yet. The average infected person spreads the disease to two or three others. Second, COVID-19 is transmitted quite efficiently. The data so far suggests that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1% this rate would make it several times more severe than typical seasonal influenza and would put it somewhere between the 1957 influenza pandemic (0.6%) and the 1918 influenza pandemic (2%). First, it can kill healthy adults in addition to elderly people with existing health problems. There are two reasons that COVID-19 is such a threat. I hope it’s not that bad, but we should assume that it will be until we know otherwise. In the past week, COVID-19 has started to behave a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about. Now, in addition to the perennial challenge, we face an immediate crisis. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed significant resources in recent years to helping the world prepare for such a scenario. Global health experts have been saying for years that another pandemic rivalling the speed and severity of the 1918 influenza epidemic wasn’t a matter of if but when. The long-term challenge-improving our ability to respond to outbreaks-isn’t new. The first point is more pressing, but the second has crucial long-term consequences. The world needs to save lives now while also improving the way we respond to outbreaks in general. The COVID-19 pandemic is an excellent case in point. In any crisis, leaders have two equally important responsibilities: solve the immediate problem and keep it from happening again.
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December 2022
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