Pandemic predictions and preparations prior to COVID-19 were pandemic predictions made and preparations carried out in the early twenty-first century prior to the 2019–20 COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank warned about the risk of pandemics throughout the 2000s and the 2010s, especially after the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak with the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board releasing its first report in late 2019. The WHO coined the term, Disease X in 2018 so the preparations for the next, at-the-time unknown pandemic could be undertaken. In 2005–2006, prior to the 2009 swine flu pandemic and during the decade following the pandemic, the governments in the United States and France prepared stocks of pandemic equipment and depleted their stocks.
During the COVID-19 pandemic itself, several reports underlined
the inability of national governments to learn from the previous disease
outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. According to Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, the United Kingdom
"failed to act upon the lessons" of the SARS outbreak. Horton described
the "global response to SARS-CoV-2 [as] the greatest science policy
failure in a generation".
International
Several public (World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board) and private
initiatives raised awareness about pandemic threats and needs for
better preparedness. International divisions and lack of suitable
collaboration limited preparedness. WHO's pandemic influenza preparedness project had a US$39 million two-year budget, out of WHO's 2020–2021 budget of US$4.8 billion.
While WHO gives recommendations, there is no sustained mechanism to
review countries' preparedness for epidemics and their rapid response
abilities. According to international economist Roland Rajah, while there are guidelines, local action depends on local governance. In 2018, the WHO coined the term, Disease X
in 2018, defined as "the knowledge that a serious international
epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human
disease" in order to focus research and development on likely candidates
for the next, at-the-time unknown, pandemic.
Since the late Cold War, Russia
has led misinformation campaigns to raise mistrust in American
institutions, sciences and health campaigns, weakening public health and
scientific authorities. Russia-linked media has insistently echoed debunked messages such as the AIDS pandemic, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, the Ebola outbreaks and COVID-19 pandemic being American-created bio-weapons; and has supported debunked anti-vaccine and radio wave scares. Such debunked messaging has been pursued and echoed on modern social web platforms. Russia's explicit goal has been to raise mistrust of American citizens and global audiences toward the federal government of the United States and American officials, and to damage American science, a foundation of the US's national prosperity.
The studies showed that a portion of Americans refrained from medical
treatments and distrusted the health authorities on the basis of such
messages. Within Russia, Putin is a strong advocate of public health and vaccines.
These Russian campaigns have been linked to lower the support for
public health programs. The illnesses have spread and weakened the
pandemic preparedness prior to the 2020 pandemic.
In the years leading up to the pandemic, several governments ran demonstration exercises (including Crimson Contagion) which proved that most countries would be underprepared.
National authorities
Following warnings and increased preparedness in the 2000s, the 2009 swine flu pandemic led to rapid anti-pandemic reactions among the Western countries. The H1N1/09 virus strain
with mild symptoms and low lethality eventually led to a backlash over
public sector over-reactiveness, spending and the high cost of the 2009 flu vaccine. In the following years, national strategic stockpiles of medical equipment were not systematically renewed. In France, a €382 million purchase of masks, vaccines and others for H1N1 under the responsibility of the Minister of Health Roselyne Bachelot was widely criticized.
The French health authorities decided in 2011 to not replete
their stocks in order to reduce acquisitions and storage costs and rely
more on supplies from China and just-in-time logistics and distribute the responsibility to private companies on an optional basis.
The French strategic stockpile dropped in this period from one billion
surgical masks and 600 million FFP2 masks in 2010 to 150 million and
zero, respectively in early 2020. The same approach was taken in the United States; the Strategic National Stockpile's stock of masks used against the 2009 flu pandemic was not replenished by the Obama administration or by the Trump administration.
Corporate profits versus pandemic preparations
The
tax systems in the early twenty-first century by favoring the largest
corporations with anti-competitive practices and lower investment rates
into innovation and productions, favored corporate actors and corporate
profits, increasing the risk of shortages and weakening the society
ability to respond to a pandemic. Andy Xie, writing in the South China Morning Post,
argued that ruling elites, obsessed with economic metrics failed to
prepare their communities against well-known pandemic risks. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, suggested that economic austerity policies played a role in the United Kingdom (UK) "failing to act upon the lessons" of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and of the UK being "poorly prepared" for the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 pandemic
Early outbreaks in Hubei, Italy and Spain showed that several wealthy countries' health care systems were overwhelmed. In developing countries with weaker medical infrastructure, equipment for intensive care beds and other medical needs, shortages were expected to occur earlier.
