How to Respond Better to the Next Pandemic

"There is no shortage of criticisms of governments' responses to Covid-19. Surely, we can respond better to the next pandemic. But how? What lessons for the future can we learn from responses to Covid-19? Some elements of adequate preparation for the next pandemic are straightforward and uncontroversial, such as adequate stockpiling of medical supplies, more vigorous efforts to encourage and coordinate vaccine research, improving healthcare infrastructures to function under the stress of a pandemic, developing capacity for vaccine production in less affluent countries, improving early reporting of the emergence of new infectious diseases, and providing more timely, more effective, and better coordinated aid to under-resourced countries. This book identifies institutional failures to explain the substantive flaws of Covid-19 pandemic policies, and then proposes institutional reforms that would reduce the risk that similar institutional failures will occur in the future. Preparation for the next pandemic requires significant institutional change at the national and international levels"--