Things We Should Learn Before the Next Pandemic, but Probably Won't!
1. We desperately need an "off-switch" on international air travel. There is simply so much of it today and it spreads diseases so quickly, allowing it to continue when there is a disease outbreak means that governments and health care systems will be quickly overwhelmed. There needs to be a way to simply order a stop, following which all planes already in the air continue to their destinations, but no new planes take off. Following this, if there need to be flights to move medical personnel or bring people home, these can be arranged by governments with proper quarantines. The body controlling the off-switch needs to be composed of medical experts deciding on the merits of the situation, not politicians seeking re-election and desperate to maintain the status quo.
If this had been done this time, we would have had much more time to head off the coronavirus.
2. We do not need even faster aircraft (supersonic transports). They should be banned.
3. To head off the inevitable hoarding, governments should, before almost anything else, limit purchases of essential goods and if necessary implement rationing. This same thing has happened over and over, in the two World Wars, and we evidently haven't learned a thing from it.
Secondly, essential goods should be removed from the "just-in-time" inventory system. It makes bigger profits for corporations, but it has failed us badly in this crisis. We need adequately stocked regional warehouses of foods, medicines, disinfectants, and paper products. We also either need large stocks of disposable Personal Protective Equipment, or smaller stocks of such equipment that is better made and can be sterilized and reused, together with the equipment to sterilize it.
4. We need to move much manufacturing and production of essentials back home. Not all, because it is safer to have such facilities spread out around the world so that if we had a disaster ourselves we could get it from outside. But we cannot remain totally dependent on international trade as we are now.
5. We need a "Manhattan Project" to research viruses, vaccines, treatments, and especially develop fast testing so we can know who is infected, who is not, and who is immune. We can't afford to destroy the world economy with long-lasting general lockdowns and quarantines every time a disease breaks out.
If this had been done this time, we would have had much more time to head off the coronavirus.
2. We do not need even faster aircraft (supersonic transports). They should be banned.
3. To head off the inevitable hoarding, governments should, before almost anything else, limit purchases of essential goods and if necessary implement rationing. This same thing has happened over and over, in the two World Wars, and we evidently haven't learned a thing from it.
Secondly, essential goods should be removed from the "just-in-time" inventory system. It makes bigger profits for corporations, but it has failed us badly in this crisis. We need adequately stocked regional warehouses of foods, medicines, disinfectants, and paper products. We also either need large stocks of disposable Personal Protective Equipment, or smaller stocks of such equipment that is better made and can be sterilized and reused, together with the equipment to sterilize it.
4. We need to move much manufacturing and production of essentials back home. Not all, because it is safer to have such facilities spread out around the world so that if we had a disaster ourselves we could get it from outside. But we cannot remain totally dependent on international trade as we are now.
5. We need a "Manhattan Project" to research viruses, vaccines, treatments, and especially develop fast testing so we can know who is infected, who is not, and who is immune. We can't afford to destroy the world economy with long-lasting general lockdowns and quarantines every time a disease breaks out.
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