Public Health and Government Preparations For Future Pandemics

Substantial weaknesses in the preparation by public health authorities and governments increased the health and economic costs of the Covid-19 pandemic relative to what they would have been if pre-existing recommendations had been followed and a wider set of plans had been put into place. Therefore, we set forth recommendations for carrying out post-mortems on the Covid-19 experience, planning for future pandemics, and establishing transparent and accountable governance systems for ongoing implementations of pre-pandemic plans. These three areas are important in and of themselves, as well as for setting the groundwork for pandemic stress tests and wargames.