Kim Riley writes in Homeland Preparedness News that the United States’ preparedness and response capabilities have buckled under the stress of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and proactive work is needed to meet the next infectious disease before it strikes, said experts during the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense May 8 virtual meeting.
“America continues struggling to catch up with the disease and get ahead of it,” said former U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, co-chairman of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. “We at the commission know with a certainty that this is not the last infectious disease pandemic we face and it may not be the biggest,” noting that COVID-19 could return in the fall “with equal, or — God forbid — greater ferocity.”
The six-member commission, established in 2014, released A National Blueprint for Biodefense: Leadership And Major Reform Needed To Optimize Efforts in October 2015. The report’s bottom line, said Lieberman, was that America was not prepared for an infectious disease pandemic, a biological attack, or the accidental release of a deadly pathogen because the country lacked the needed medical countermeasures, vaccines, treatments and the ability to rapidly develop them.
And still, America remains “much too much dependent on other countries” for many of the medicines and essential supplies that are needed now, Lieberman said, adding that the U.S. also needs improved surveillance and detection capabilities to help identify and contain the spread of COVID-19.
While several recommendations from the commission’s report were included in U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Biodefense Strategy issued in September 2018, Lieberman said that “sadly, one COVID-19 hit and very few of the ideas we’ve put forward and even those that were adopted in legislation … were adopted or funded.”
“The conclusion we reached in 2015 was that America was not prepared, which unfortunately is painfully true in 2020 when the infectious disease pandemic struck,” he said.
On Friday, the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense premiered the pre-taped May 6 “COVID-19: Forewarned, But Not Forearmed,” a meeting to better understand the nation’s ongoing response to the pandemic, its readiness to address the spread of the disease, and implications for bolstering preparedness for a new biological threat.
“We thought six years ago that [a potential pandemic] demanded immediate attention,” said former Pennsylvania governor and former director of the U.S. Office of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, who also co-chairs the commission. “What we’ve seen has validated our work and we hope to play as constructive a role as we have in the past to help identify gaps.”