Given the engineered collapse of USAID and the NIH in the USA, as well as their turning away from WHO support, what are the most likely future scenarios? Can the other developed nations mount a credible pandemic response without the resources of the USA?
I am especially interested in global perspectives because pathogens don’t need passports. How might this impact the global order?
Yes. Just to show you an example from the other end of the developmental spectrum: even North Korea made it through COVID virtually without any resources.
You speak English. There is an at least partially English speaking country to your North. There are more English speaking ones scattered around the world. Most cutting edge research in anything will eventually end up in an English version if it was from somewhere-elsistan originally. The US is/was not the only country with something like the CDC. If you google their counterparts I would not be surprised if you found a warning about a measles outbreak in Texas. The research will be done elsewhere; the US may only lose its leadership position in the field.
BTW I would call the US response to COVID-19 just as shambolic as any other country’s. The only difference was maybe they could throw more money at the problem. And that they could do again.
No country will be fully prepared. Ever. We don’t know what the next pandemic will be, we don’t know when it will happen. The lab coats will have an idea but it’s too vague to build policy around that in a world, where there continues to be no glory in prevention. Stockpiles will perish, emergency plans will gather dust, and we will all be shocked and surprised again.
Humanity was sort of lucky that two Turkish scientists were quick to realize they could use a DNA something something method, that was not held in the highest regard in scientific circles before COVID hit, to make a vaccine in record time. They did that in Europe.
The money was stolen mostly