Preparing for the Next Pandemic
The first approval of a Covid-19 vaccine occurred in late August 2021; protests against the vaccine and against mandates for its use began soon after. Since the beginning of 2022 opposition to Covid restrictions have brought thousands of demonstrators to cities throughout Europe. European Union headquarters in Belgium was attacked by 50,000 demonstrators in January. Thousands protested in Vienna against Austria’s vaccination mandate that started in early February. Demonstrations in Berlin and other German cities draw tens of thousands every week. Demonstrations in Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden have each drawn thousands of protestors. Along with similar events in Canada and the United States, demonstrations encompassed virtually all of the major western democracies.
In news stories of the protests, lack of trust in government has been acknowledged by some government officials as triggering the unrest. Due to distrust of those managing the response to Covid-19, and lack of faith in the safety of the hurriedly-developed vaccines, the battle against the pandemic was resisted by significant portions of each country’s population. In the U.S. it didn’t help that the losing party in the 2020 presidential election criticized the new administration’s pandemic response, after earlier minimizing the threat from the pandemic when the party occupied the White House.
Widespread as the demonstrations were, some western countries were more successful than others in getting their population vaccinated and experiencing lower rates of death. As of late February 2022, 95% of Portugal’s population had been fully or partly vaccinated, the highest in Europe and second only to United Arab Emirates. Spain’s population was 88% vaccinated, and Italy’s, 84%. The U.S. population was 76% vaccinated at that time. As of late February, the United States led the western democracies with 2,850 deaths per million population. Spain’s rate was 2,130 per million, and Italy’s, 2,550. Norway’s rate was 292 per million.
Ezra Klein reported in the New York Times on a Johns Hopkins health security report. As of October 2019, the United States ranked first among 195 countries on pandemic preparedness. “Each country is judged on prevention policy, on detection capabilities, on response infrastructure, on health system capacity, on international cooperation and on underlying risk.” Many factors during a pandemic are beyond government control, such as age structure, climate, and GDP per capita.
The importance of trust has been studied in depth as an essential consideration in preparing for future medical emergencies. The Global Health Program (GHP) at the Council on Foreign Relations sought to understand why some nations were more successful than others in limiting Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. The GHP report found national attributes in terms of healthcare capacity and pandemic preparedness were not correlated with cross-country variations in infections and fatalities.
[H]igher levels of trust (government and interpersonal) had large, statistically significant associations with fewer infections for the entire study period…. These results support previous research that has found an association between trust and compliance with public health guidance… Governments and communities maintain or increase the public’s trust by providing accurate, timely information about the pandemic, even when that information is still limited, and by clearly communicating the risk and relevant vulnerabilities.”
In an interview on National Public Radio, Thomas Bollyky, co-author of the GHP study, highlighted U.S. policy addressing government’s role: “Part of our pandemic preparedness guidelines dating back to [George W. Bush’s presidency in] 2006 emphasized a paramount importance of community-specific, clear, consistent risk communication in a crisis like this one.” No country could know with certainty the best response to the sudden appearance of a new form of coronavirus. President Bush’s guidelines called for early detection, international cooperation, stockpiling of medical equipment, and public education. Following the established policy would have placed the U.S. in a better position to reduce Covid-19 infections and deaths.